AMERICAN  PAINTING 

AND  ITS  TRADITION 


JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE 


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AMERICAN  PAINTING 

AND  ITS  TRADITION 


AMERICAN  PAINTING 

AND  ITS  TRADITION 


AS  REPRESENTED  BY  INNESS.  WYANT,  MARTIN.  HOMER. 

LA  FARGE,  WHISTLER,  CHASE,  ALEXANDER, 

SARGENT 


BY 

JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE 

Author  of  "  Art  for  Art's  Sake,"  "  The  Meaning  of  Pictures, 
"What  is  Art?"  etc. 


With  Twenty-four  Illustrations 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1919 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Publislied  October,  1919 


Library 


/?:'' 


^  PREFACE 

THE  painters  about  whom  these  chapters  are  written  helped  to 
make  up  the  period  in  American  painting  dating,  generally,  from 
about  1878  to,  say,  191 5.  That  period  has  practically  closed  in  the 
sense  that  a  newer  generation  with  different  aims  and  aspirations 

CD 

^  has  come  forward,  and  the  men  who  broke  groimd  years  ago  in  the 

Society  of  American  Artists  have  turned  their  fiurow  and  had  their 

c    day.  Indeed,  those  I  have  chosen  to  write  about  herein,  with  the 

^    exception  of  Sargent,  have  passed  on  and  passed  out.  Not  only  their 

'^    period  but  their  work  has  ended.  We  are  now  beginning  to  see  them 

in  something  like  historic  perspective.  Perhaps,  then,  the  time  is 

opportime  for  speaking  of  them  as  a  group  and  of  their  influence 

upon  American  art. 

Not  all  of  the  one-time  '*  new  movement "  originated  and  died 

with  these  nine  men.  Dozens  of  painters  became  identified  with 

American  art  just  after  the  Centennial,  and  many  of  those  who  came 

e  back  from  Mimich  and  Paris  in  the  late  seventies  and  the  early 

c  eighties  are  still  living  and  producing.  But  while  the  nine  were  by 

X  no  means  the  whole  cotmt  they  were  certainly  representative  of 

the  movement,  and  their  works  speak  for  almost  every  phase  of  it. 

The  value  of  the  movement  to  American  art  can  be  rightly  enough 

judged  from  them. 

During  their  lives  these  nine  did  not  lack  for  praise — some  of  it 
wise  and  some  of  it  otherwise.  They  were  much  exploited  in  print.  I 
myself  joined  in  the  chorus.  I  had  more  or  less  acquaintance  with  all 
of  them,  lived  through  the  period  with  them,  and  from  1880  on  wrote 
much  about  them.  My  opportunities  for  seeing  and  hearing  were 
abimdant,  and  perhaps  such  value  as  this  book  may  possess  comes 
from  my  having  been  a  looker-on  in  Vienna  during  those  years.  To 
personal  impressions  I  am  now  adding  certain  conclusions  as  to 


what  the  men  on  my  list,  taken  as  a  body,  have  established.  They 
wrought  during  a  period  of  great  material  development — wrought 
in  a  common  spirit,  making  an  epoch  in  art  history  and  leaving  a 
tradition.  The  pathfinders  in  any  period  deserve  well  of  their  country- 
men. And  their  trail  is  worth  following,  for  eventually  it  may  become 
a  broad  national  highway. 

J.  C.  V.  D. 
Rutgers  College, 
1919. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    The  Art  Tradition  in  America 1 

II.    George  Inness 19 

III.  Alexander  H.  Wyant 43 

IV.  Homer  Martin G5 

V.     WiNSLOw  Homer 89 

VI.     John  La  Faroe 115 

VII.     James  Abbott  McNeill  Whistler     ....  147 

\TII.     William  Merritt  Chase 185 

IX.     John  W.  Alexander 217 

X.     John  S.  Sargent 243 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACmO  PAGi! 

George  Inness,  "Evening  at  Medfield" 32 

George  Inness,  "Sunset  at  Montclair" 34 

Reproduced   by   the   courtesy  of  F.  F.  Sherman,  publisher  of  "  George  In- 
ness," by  Elliott  Daingerfield 

George  Inness,  "  Hackensack  Meadows " 38 

Alexander  H,  Wyant,  "Mohawk  Valley"       ....  52 

Alexander  H.  Wy ANT,  "Broad,  Silent  Valley"      ...  58 

Homer  D.  Martin,  "  View  on  the  Seine " 78 

Homer  D.  Martin,  "Westchester  Hills" 84 

Reproduced  by  the  courtesy  of  F.  F.  Sherman,  publisher  of  "  Homer  Martin," 
by  Frank  Jewett  Mather 

WiNSLOw  Homer,  "  Undertow " 102 

WiNSLow  Homer,  "Marine" 104 

WiNSLow  Homer,  "Fox  and  Crows" 108 

John  La  Farge,  "Paradise  Valley" 130 

John  La  Farge,  "  The  Muse  " 134 

John  La  F.iRGE,  "  The  Tliree  Kings  " 138 

James  A.  McNeill  Whistler,   "Nocturne.     Gray  and 

Silver.     Chelsea  Embankment " IjS 

James  A.  McNeill  Whistler,  "The  Princesse  du  Pays  de 

la  Porcclame" 1G2 

James  A.  McNeill  Whistler,  "The  Yellow  Buskin"      .  168 

WiLLLiM  Merritt  Chase,  "The  Woman  with  the  WTiite 

Shawl" 203 

WiLUAM  Merritt  Chase,  "Afternoon  at  Peconic"     .     .  204 

ix 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACraO  PAGE 

William  Merritt  Chase,  "Child  Dancing"    ....  212 

John  W.  Alexander,  "The  Ring" 230 

John  W.  Alexander,  "Walt  Whitman" 236 

John  S.  Sargent,  "Mrs.  Pulitzer" 256 

John  S.  Sargent,  "Carnation  Lily,  Lily  Rose"      .     .     .  260 

John  S.  Sargent,  "Carmencita" 2C2 


1 

THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA 

During  the  Revolutionary  Period,  and  imme- 
diately thereafter,  art  in  America  was  some- 
thing of  sporadic  growth,  something  not  quite 
indigenous  but  rather  transplanted  from  Eng- 
land. Painting  was  little  more  than  portraiture, 
and  the  work  was  done  after  the  English  formula. 
America  had  no  formula  of  its  own.  There  was 
no  native  school  of  art,  no  tradition  of  the  craft, 
no  body  of  art  knowledge  handed  down  from  one 
generation  to  another.  West  and  Copley  started 
out  practically  without  predecessors.  They  were 
the  beginners. 

With  Cole,  Durand,  and,  later  on,  Kensett, 
that  is  about  1825,  another  kind  of  painting 
sprang  up  on  American  soil.  It  was  the  painting 
of  landscape — landscape  of  the  Hudson  River 
variety — and,  whatever  its  technical  short- 
comings, at  least  it  had  the  merit  of  being  origi- 
nal. Apparently  nothing  of  artistic  faith  or  of 
accumulated  knowledge  or  art  usage  was  handed 
down  to  the  Hudson  River  men  by  the  portrait- 
painters  who  had  preceded  them.  The  leaders 
worked  from  nature  with  little  or  no  instruction. 
They  were  self-taught,  and  if  any  inkling  of  how 

3 


4  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

work  was  carried  on  in  the  painting-rooms  of 
Copley,  Stuart,  or  Vanderlyn  was  given  them, 
they  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  it  or  found  it  inapplica- 
ble to  their  landscape-work.  If  they  knew  of  a 
tradition  they  ignored  it. 
This    matter    of    tradition— the    accumulated 
point  of  view  and  teaching  of  the  craft — is  of 
some  importance  in  our  inquiry.  It  has  gone  to 
the  making  of  all  the  great  art  of  the  past.  There 
were    several    hundred    years    of    sculptors    in 
Greece,  with  a  continuous  story,  before  Scopas 
and  Praxiteles  brought  their  art  to  final  ma- 
turity;  for  centuries  painters,  with  their  crafts- 
man-making   guilds,    had    preceded    Raphael, 
Leonardo,  and  Titian;  countless   "primitives" 
and  "early  men'*  went  to  the  shades  unsung  be- 
fore Velasquez,  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  Holbein 
came  to  power.  In  America  the  Copley-Stuart 
contingent   caught   at,    and    in    large   measure 
grasped,  the  foreign  teaching  handed  down  by 
Reynolds  and  his  school.  Perhaps  that  accounts 
in  some  measure  for  their  success.^  A  genera- 
tion later  Cole  and  Durand  started  out  to  paint 
landscape  without  any  teaching  whatever.  Does 
that  account  in  any  degree  for  their  failure  ?  They 
failed  to  produce  any  fine  quality  of  art,  but  they 
had  pupils  and  followers  in  whom  the  Hudson 
River  school  finally  culminated.   It  became  a 
school   because   Cole   and   Durand   established 
with  themselves  a  teaching,  such  as  it  was,  and 
handed  down  to  their  pupils  a  point  of  view 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  5 

and  a  body  of  tradition.  Perhaps  again  that  ex- 
plains, to  some  extent,  the  varied  successes  of 
such  followers  of  the  school  as  Inness,  Wyant, 
Martin,  Swain  Gifford,  Whittredge,  McEntee. 

But  not  entirely.  Some  of  these  last-named 
were  influenced  by  European  art,  outgrew  the 
teaching  of  their  forerunners,  and  in  middle  life 
rather  forsook  their  early  love  and  faith.  Yet 
it  would  be  idle  to  contend  that  they  had  not  re- 
ceived an  inclination,  even  an  inspiration,  from 
contact  with  the  older  men.  Short-lived  though 
it  was,  and  shallow  as  were  its  teachings,  the 
Hudson  River  school,  nevertheless,  had  weight 
with  its  followers.  Even  error  is  often  helpful  in 
establishing  truth,  and  a  feeble  precedent  is  per- 
haps better  than  none  at  all.  Some  of  the  pupils — 
F.  E.  Church  and  Sandford  Gifford,  for  examples 
— never  outgrew  their  basic  teaching.  To  the  end 
they  carried  on  the  Cole-Durand  tradition,  im- 
proving and  bettering  it.  They  bettered  it  be- 
cause they  could  add  to  their  own  view-point  the 
observation  and  teaching  of  their  masters.  Three 
generations  at  least  are  supposed  to  be  neces- 
sary to  the  making  of  the  thorough  gentleman. 
Is  it  possible  to  make  the  thorough  artist  in  one  ? 

But  the  Hudson  River  school  was  too  frail  in- 
herently to  carry  great  weight.  IVIen  like  Inness, 
Wyant,  and  Martin  soon  began  to  se«  its  weak- 
nesses. Even  before  they  went  to  Europe  they 
had  doubted  and  after  their  return  to  America 
they  were  openly  heretical.  They  held  allegiance 


6  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

only  in  the  matter  of  the  Cat  skill- Adirondack 
subject,  and  even  that  became  modified  to  a  vir- 
tual disappearance  toward  the  end  of  their  ca- 
reers. Both  aim  and  method  changed  with  them. 
They  saw  deeper  and  painted  freer,  until  finally 
they  were  wholly  out  of  sympathy  not  only  with 
the  thin  technique  of  the  school  but  with  its 
panoramic  conception  of  nature. 

So  it  was  that  in  1876  when  the  United  States 
held  its  first  national  art  exhibition — the  Cen- 
tennial, at  Philadelphia — the  painting  of  the 
country  was  in  something  of  an  anomalous  con- 
dition. The  Hudson  River  school  was  practi- 
cally at  the  end  of  its  rope.  The  older  portrait- 
painters  had  been  succeeded  by  Harding,  Alex- 
ander, Neagle,  Elliott,  Inman,  Page,  Healy — 
each  of  them  more  or  less  going  his  own  way. 
The  German  Leutze  had  been  here  and  had 
blazed  a  brimstone  trail  of  Dusseldorf  method, 
along  which  some  painters  followed.  Hicks  and 
Hunt  at  Boston  had  introduced  the  French  art 
of  Couture  and  Millet,  and  they  also  had  a  fol- 
lowing. Quite  apart  from  all  of  them  stood  some 
independent  personalities  like  La  Farge  and 
Winslow  Homer,  who  seemed  to  say,"  a  plague  on 
all  your  houses."  And  they,  too,  went  their  own 
ways.  There  was  no  school  unity. 

No  wonder  then  with  these  conflicting  individu- 
alities, and  with  all  traditions  obsolete  or  un- 
known, there  was  no  such  thing  as  an  American 
school  of  painting  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition. 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  7 

The  visitor  in  Memorial  Hall  wandered  hither 
and  yon  among  the  pictures  and  vainly  strove  to 
grasp  a  consensus  of  art  opinion  or  even  an 
art  tendency.  The  exhibition  was  more  or  less  of 
a  hodgepodge.  As  a  result  both  painter  and  pub- 
lic went  away  in  a  somewhat  bemuddled  con- 
dition. Perhaps  the  only  thing  about  the  exhibi- 
tion that  impressed  one  strongly  was  the  general 
incompetence  and  inconsequence  of  it. 

Just  at  this  time  there  entered  upon  the  scene 
another  generation,  a  younger  group  of  Ameri- 
can painters.  Many  of  them  had  seen  the  exhibi- 
tion at  the  Centennial  and  had,  perhaps,  been 
unwarrantably  influenced  by  it.  They  brought 
away  from  it  a  longing  to  paint;  but  they  real- 
ized that  such  art  as  that  at  Philadelphia  was  not 
what  they  wished  to  produce,  and  if  American 
teaching  was  responsible  for  it,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  teaching.  They  would  have  none 
of  it.  Once  more  there  was  a  sharp  break  with 
everything  that  might  resemble  a  school  view 
or  a  school  method.  The  younger  group  left  the 
country  and  sought  instruction  in  European 
studios  believing  that  nothing  of  good  could 
come  out  of  the  Nazareth  of  America. 

Some  of  this  later  generation  had  gone  abroad 
for  study  just  before  187G.  Shirlaw,  Chase,  and 
Duveneck  were  at  Munich;  Maynard,  Minor, and 
Millet  at  Antwerp;  Blashfield,  Bridgman,  Beck- 
with,  Thayer,  Aldcn  Weir,  Low,  Wyatt  Eaton  at 
Paris.  After   187G  the  exodus  was  greater  and 


8  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Paris  was  the  goal.  A  few  years  later  some  of 
these  students  were  homeward  bound,  having 
finished  a  more  or  less  advanced  course  of  in- 
struction under  competent  masters.  They  im- 
mediately set  up  studios  in  New  York,  and,  with 
the  enthusiasm  and  assurance  of  youth,  began 
to  impart  information  to  the  effect  that  the  only 
painting  of  importance  was  that  of  Europe.  As 
for  the  native  American  art,  it  was  not  worth 
reckoning  with.  The  Academy  of  Design  was 
merely  the  abiding-place  of  the  ossified,  and,  of 
course,  it  would  be  surrendered  on  the  demand 
of  the  younger  men.  But  the  Academy,  after  a 
battle  of  words,  declined  to  give  up  the  fort,  and 
a  httle  later  declined  even  to  hang  some  of 
the  pictures  of  the  gifted.  This  was  regarded  as 
unspeakably  outrageous,  and  swift  action  fol- 
lowed. In  1877  there  was  a  call  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  new  art  body,  and  out  of  it 
came  the  Society  of  American  Artists,  with 
twenty-two  initial  members. 
The  younger  men  had  not  invited  the  academi- 
cians as  a  body  to  join  them,  but  they  had  rec- 
ognized the  talent  of  certain  men,  who,  though 
members  of  the  Academy,  were  not  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  it.  In  other  words,  the  aloof  element 
of  the  Academy  was  elected  to  membership  in 
the  Society.  These  men — La  Farge,  Inness,  Mar- 
tin, Moran,  Tiffany,  Colman,  Swain  Gifford 
— joined  the  new  without  abandoning  the  old, 
and  the  Society  quickly  got  under  way,  with  its 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  9 

declaration  of  independence  nailed  to  the  mast- 
head. In  ten  years  the  Society  had  grown  in 
membership  to  over  a  hundred,  had  held  yearly 
exhibitions  from  1878  on,  and  had  achieved  a 
substantial  success — a  success  of  technique,  if 
nothing  more. 

It  is  worth  noting  just  here  that  this  departure 
was  a  third  violent  break  in  the  American  art 
tradition.  The  young  men  in  the  Society  practi- 
cally proclaimed  that  they  would  start  all  over 
again  and  build  a  more  worthy  mansion  than 
their  predecessors.  Had  they  not  gone  to  Eu- 
rope and  received  the  best  of  technical  training  ? 
Did  they  not  know  how  to  draw  and  paint? 
For  the  first  time  in  its  history  America  might 
congratulate  itself  upon  possessing  a  body  of 
painters  that  understood  the  technique  of  their 
craft.  American  art  would  now  begin. 

Lest  progressive  craftsmanship  should  die  out 
new  students  continued  to  go  abroad,  and  the 
Art  Students  League  was  started  for  those  stop- 
ping at  home.  This  new  institution  was  not 
bound  by  any  conventionalities;  its  existence 
was  a  protest  against  them.  It  had  no  century- 
old  precedents  to  live  up  to;  it  was  free  to  stickle 
for  good  workmanship  alone.  It  was  the  training- 
school  for  no  peculiar  kind  of  art;  it  stood  ready 
and  eager  to  adopt  any  new  method  or  medium 
or  material  that  was  offered.  It  was  progressive 
to  the  last  degree — progressive  to  the  extent  of 
burning  every  bridge  behind  it  and  starting  out 


10  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

de  novo  to  produce  technicians  (and  consequent 
art)  worthy  of  the  name. 

Well,  the  men,  and  the  institutions,  and  the 
movement  have  been  under  way  for  forty  years. 
Much  paint  has  been  spread  on  canvas  in  that 
time  and  hundreds  of  hands  have  been  busy  pro- 
ducing pictures.  The  "young  men"  have  become 
old  men  and  many  of  them  have  dropped  out. 
The  movement  itself  no  longer  moves,  though 
some  of  its  best  men  are  still  painting.  But  what 
is  the  net  result  of  these  forty  years  ?  Have  the 
European-trained,  after  all,  succeeded  in  pro- 
ducing in  their  one  generation,  sans  tradition,  an 
American  art.'^  No  one  will  question  for  a  mo- 
ment that  they  have  produced  many  exception- 
ally good  works,  even  masterpieces;  that  they 
are  a  competent,  even  learned,  body  of  artists; 
but  has  what  they  have  said  proclaimed  American 
ideals  and  reflected  American  life,  or  has  it  re- 
peated the  conventions  and  atelier  methods  of 
Europe.^  Has  not  the  manner  of  saying  with 
them  been  more  in  evidence  than  the  thing 
said.f^  Is  their  foreign-based  art  entirely  satis- 
factory or  representative  of  America  ? 

From  a  Whistlerian  point  of  view  this  matter 
of  tradition  is,  of  course,  great  nonsense.  Art  just 
^'happens"  in  Ten  0' Clock,  and  the  artist  is  that 
one  in  the  multitude  whom  the  gods  see  fit  to 
strike  with  divine  fire.  He  is  called  to  service 
by  inspiration  as  were  the  prophets  of  old.  All 
of  which  no  doubt  explains   the  anointing  of 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  11 

Whistler  but  does  not  account  for  the  high- 
priesthood  of  Velasquez,  of  Rembrandt,  of 
Raphael,  or  of  Rubens.  To  say  that  three  cen- 
turies of  guild -teaching  in  the  best  way  to  grind 
color,  or  lay  a  gesso  ground,  or  draw  a  figure, 
or  fill  a  given  space,  is  not  better  than  the  in- 
tuition of  any  one  man  of  a  period  is  equivalent 
to  saying  that  the  accumulated  knowledge  of 
the  world  is  worthless,  and  each  new  generation 
should  discard  it  and  begin  all  over  again.  That 
is  substantially  what  Mr.  Whistler  advocated. 
And,  further,  that  the  artist  should  stand  aloof 
and  create  independently  of  time,  place,  or 
people. 

But  out  of  nothing  nothing  comes,  and  psychol- 
ogy assures  us  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  orig- 
inality save  by  a  combination  of  things  already 
known.  The  old  is  added  to  and  makes  the  new. 
The  old  is  the  tradition  of  the  craft;  the  new  is 
the  revised  point  of  view  and  method  plus  the 
old.  It  was  so  with  Whistler  notwithstanding  his 
pretty  argument  around  the  clock.  He  was  be- 
holden to  Gleyre,  Ingres,  Boucher,  Velasquez, 
Courbet,  Albert  Moore,  Hokusai,  and  helped 
himself  to  them  when,  where,  and  how  he  could. 
He  would  have  been  the  last  one  to  deny  it.  Had 
there  been  more  continuity  and  stability  in  his 
training,  had  he  followed  the  teaching  of  the 
craft  more  intently,  he  would  not  have  been  wor- 
ried all  his  life  as  to  whether  his  people  stood 
well  upon  their  feet,  and  he  might  have  pro- 


12  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

duced  art  with  the  calmness  and  poise  of  his 
great  Velasquez.  His  misfortune  was  that  he  had 
no  thorough  schoohng,  inherited  no  body  of 
taste,  and  practically  stood  alone  in  art.  That  he 
succeeded  was  owing  to  exceptional  genius.  That 
he  was  never  in  the  class  with  Velasquez  or  Ti- 
tian or  Rembrandt  was  perhaps  due  to  the  fact 
that  they  had  the  training  and  the  tradition 
and  he  had  not. 

The  Whistler  type  is  not  infrequently  met  in 
American  life — the  type  that  seeks  to  scale 
Olympus  without  the  preliminary  of  antecedent 
preparation.  In  art  he  usually  has  half  a  dozen 
strings  to  his  bow,  and  paints,  lectures,  writes, 
speaks,  carries  on  a  business  in  Wall  Street  or 
elsewhere.  He  is  glib  in  many  things,  has  great 
facility,  is  astonishingly  clever;  but  somehow  he 
never  gets  beyond  the  superficial.  He  has  not 
depth  or  poise  or  great  seriousness.  There  is  no 
hard  training  or  long  tradition  or  intellectual 
heritage  behind  him.  He  is  not  to  the  manner 
born. 

Every  writer  in  America  knows  that  present- 
day  American  literature,  with  some  precious  ex- 
ceptions, does  not  reach  up  to  contemporary 
English  literature;  that  poetry  or  romance  or 
criticism  with  us  has  not  the  form,  the  substance, 
or  the  technical  accomplishment  of  the  same 
work  in  France.  Every  architect  in  America 
must  realize  that  with  all  the  get-learned-quick 
of  his  foreign  study,  with  all  his  appropriations 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  13 

from  the  Gothic  or  the  Renaissance  or  the 
Georgian,  with  all  his  cleverness  in  solving 
business  needs  and  doing  building  stunts  under 
peculiar  circumstances,  there  is  something  lack- 
ing in  his  productions;  that  they  are  not  so 
monumental  as  he  could  wish  for;  that  they  are 
not  firm  set  in  the  ground  and  do  not  belong 
to  the  soil  and  remain  a  part  of  the  land  and 
the  people  in  the  sense  of  contemporary  French 
or  even  English  architecture.  Every  musician 
with  us  must  have  a  similar  feeling  about  our 
music.  As  with  architecture  and  painting,  there 
have  been  some  remarkable  compositions  put 
forth  by  our  composers.  Europe  compliments  us 
by  playing  them  and  nods  approval  at  the  en- 
deavor, but  again  they  do  not  reach  up  to 
corresponding  work  in  Paris  or  Berlin  or 
Munich.  Why  not.'^  Have  we  not  as  good  brains 
and  fiddles  in  New  York  as  in  Vienna  ^  What  is 
it  we  lack  ? 

Surely  we  are  not  wanting  in  energy,  in  re- 
source, in  materials.  Is  it  perhaps  the  restraint 
of  these  that  we  need.'^  Time  and  patience  are 
very  necessary  factors  in  all  of  the  arts.  Attitude 
of  mind,  a  sense  of  proportion — a  style,  in  short 
— cannot  be  attained  in  a  few  years  of  schooling. 
To  the  training  of  a  lifetime  must  be  added 
a  something  that  has  been  more  or  less  inherited. 
Tliat  something  handed  down  from  father  to 
son,  from  master  to  pupil,  from  generation  to 
generation,  is  what  I  have  called  tradition.  It 


14  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

is  not  technique  alone,  but  a  mental  outlook, 
added  to  the  body  of  belief  and  experience  of 
those  who  have  gone  before.  The  skilled  hand  of  a 
Kreisler,  a  Sargent,  a  MacMonnies  is  perhaps 
possible  of  attainment  in  a  decade,  but  the 
mental  attitude — its  poise  and  its  restraint — is 
that  something  which  is  inherited  as  taste,  and 
many  decades  may  go  to  its  formation.  In  this 
latter  respect,  perhaps,  Kreisler  has  had  the 
advantage  of  both  Sargent  and  MacMonnies. 

Coming  back,  therefore,  to  the  men  of  the 
Society  of  American  Artists,  we  cannot  say  that 
they  failed  in  skill  or  were  wanting  in  endeavor, 
or  had  no  intelhgence.  They  had  all  of  these,  but, 
unfortunately,  they  were  not  of  artistic  descent, 
and  inherited  no  patrimony  of  style.  Instead 
they  tried  to  adopt  in  a  few  years  the  long  story 
of  French  style,  and  attained  only  that  part  of 
it  relating  to  technique.  They  were  of  the  third 
generation  in  American  art,  but  each  one  of 
these  generations  had  denied  and  forsworn  its 
predecessor,  had  flung  its  mess  of  pottage,  such 
as  it  was,  out  of  the  window,  and  had  left  the 
ancestral  roof  never  to  return.  The  third  genera- 
tion then  had  nothing  by  descent,  not  even  a 
pictorial  or  a  plastic  mind  that  could  see  the 
world  in  images.  It  went  forth  empty-handed 
into  the  highways  and  byways  of  Europe,  be- 
came proficient  in  craftsmanship,  and  relied 
upon  that  for  success. 

This  is  not  merely  figure  of  speech,  but  state- 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  15 

ment  of  fact.  None  of  the  American  painters 
spoken  of  in  these  pages,  with  the  exception 
of  La  Farge,  came  from  what  might  be  called 
an  artistic  family,  or  had  aesthetic  antecedents. 
They  were  boys  on  a  farm  or  grew  up  in  the 
atmosphere  of  trade  or  profession,  and  came 
to  art  at  twenty  or  thereabouts.  They  then 
learned  the  technique  of  painting  quickly,  and 
with  much  facility,  but  their  mental  attitude 
toward  art  was  untrained  and  remained  unde- 
termined. Long  after  they  knew  how  to  paint 
they  knew  not  what  to  paint  or  how  to  think. 
Their  point  of  view  was  superficial  or  common- 
place, or  otherwise  negligible.  I  have  excepted 
La  Farge,  for,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  he  did 
have  an  aesthetic  legend  behind  him.  Is  that 
why  he  is  now  placed  as  the  one  Olympian  of 
the  period.'^  I  would  also  partly  except  Inness, 
Wyant,  and  Martin,  who  did  know  and  follow 
at  one  time  the  rather  feeble  Hudson  River 
school  tradition.  I  ask  again  is  that  why  they 
remain,  even  to  this  day,  the  best  of  our  rather 
long  line  of  landscape-painters  ? 

Is  tradition  then  synonymous  with  the  aca- 
demic? Not  entirely';  though  the  academies  are 
usually  the  custodians  and  conservers  of  it. 
Unfortunately,  their  practice  tends  to  perpetuate 
a  manner  that  soon  becomes  a  mannerism,  and 
finally  the  mannerism  usurps  the  place  of  style. 
Tlie  academic  in  France  or  Germany  or  Ital}^ 
has  of  recent  years  become  a  term  of  reproach. 


16  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

All  the  rebels  in  art  have  been  opposed  to  it. 
When  they  rebelled,  their  rebellion  was  called 
by  them,  or  their  biographers,  *'the  break  with 
tradition."  Rather  was  it  a  break  with  an  in- 
durated method  or  the  tyranny  of  a  hanging 
committee.  For  tradition  has  to  do  more  with 
the  spirit  and  style  of  art,  while  the  academic  is 
recognized  in  a  method  or  a  formula  which,  end- 
lessly repeated,  finally  becomes  trite  and  even 
banal. 

The  art  of  old  Japan  ran  on  for  centuries  and 
was  excellent  art  notwithstanding  it  was  aca- 
demic and  based  in  tradition.  It  did  not  run  into 
formalism  and  never  became  trite  until  recent 
years.  Its  ruin  lies  straight  ahead  of  it  if  it  shall 
abandon  its  traditions  and  continue  to  coquette 
with  Occidental  art.  But  the  bulk  of  painting 
by  the  young  men  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  became  commonplace  within  a  dozen 
years  after  their  return  because  they  had 
learned  abroad  only  a  manner  and  reproduced 
it  here  in  America  with  the  persistence  of  a 
mannerism.  They  never  knew  the  academic  in 
its  larger  significance;  they  never  felt  the  spirit 
and  style  of  the  traditional. 

That  is  not  to  proclaim  their  work  worthless 
or  their  movement  inconsequent.  On  the  con- 
trary, almost  everything  that  one  generation 
in  art  could  do  was  done.  And  well  done.  They 
established  a  foundation  in  sound  technique.  It 
remains  to  be  seen  if  those  who  come  after  will 


THE  ART  TRADITION  IN  AMERICA  17 

build  upon  it  or  cast  it  down.  Moreover,  as  an 
expression  of  the  individual  quite  apart  from  the 
time,  place,  or  people,  as  a  representation  of 
cosmopolitan  belief  about  art,  it  must  be  ac- 
corded a  very  high  place.  Whistler  and  Sargent 
happen  just  now  to  be  the  most  talked  about 
exponents  of  the  cosmopolitan,  but  dozens  of 
painters  here  in  America  since  1876  belong  in  the 
same  class  and  have  the  same  belief.  It  is  all 
along  of  a  new  departure  in  art,  and  how  it  shall 
work  out  no  one  can  say,  but  that  it  does  not 
entirely  satisfy  contemporary  needs  is  already 
manifest.  In  spite  of  present  practice,  and  quite 
apart  from  Ten  0' Clock  and  other  painter 
extravagances,  art  is  still  believed  to  be  in  some 
way  an  expression  of  a  time,  a  place,  and  a  peo- 
ple. The  world  has  not  yet  grown  so  small  that 
it  does  not  continue  to  exhibit  race  character- 
istics in  its  art  manifestations.  That  the  all-the- 
world-as-one  idea  may  be  farther-reaching,  more 
universal  in  its  scope,  and  therefore  loftier  in  its 
art  expression  than  any  national  or  race  expres- 
sion is  very  possible;  nay,  probable.  Still,  even 
then,  with  cosmopolitanism  in  the  saddle,  there 
will  be  the  need  and  the  use  of  tradition — the 
consensus  of  opinion  and  body  of  belief  as  to 
what  constitutes  style  in  art. 


II 

GEORGE  INNESS 
1825-1894 


II 

GEORGE  INNESS 

1825-1894 

A  PLAIN  man  of  the  business  world,  knowing 
nothing  of  the  peculiar  manifestations  of  the 
artistic  mind,  would  be  very  apt  to  wonder  over 
the  mental  make-up  of  a  George  Inness.  An 
artist's  way  of  looking  at  things  is  never  quite 
sensible  to  the  man  in  the  street.  It  is  too  tem- 
peramental, too  impulsive;  and  Inness  was 
supertemperamental  even  for  an  artist.  When 
he  expressed  himself  in  paint  he  was  very  sane; 
but  when  he  argued,  his  auditors  thought  him 
erratic.  And  not  without  reason.  He  was  easily 
stirred  by  controversy,  and  in  the  heat  of  dis- 
cussion he  often  discoursed  like  a  mad  rhapsodist. 
His  thin  hands  and  cheeks,  his  black  eyes,  ragged 
beard,  and  long  dark  hair,  the  dramatic  action 
of  his  slight  figure  as  he  walked  and  talked, 
seemed  to  complete  the  picture  of  the  perfervid 
visionary. 

He  was  always  somewhat  hectic.  As  a  boy  he 
was  delicate,  sufTcred  from  epilepsy,  and  was 
mentally  overwrought.  His  physician  had  noth- 
ing to  recommend  but  fresh  air.  As  a  man,  one 


22  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

of  his  hearers  over  the  dinner-table,  after  listen- 
ing to  his  exposition  of  the  feminine  element 
in  landscape,  or  some  allied  theme,  said:  "Mr. 
Inness,  what  you  need  is  fresh  air."  Inness  used 
to  tell  this  story  about  himself  with  a  little  smile, 
as  though  conscious  of  having  appeared  extrava- 
gant. As  for  fresh  air  in  the  sense  of  out-of-doors, 
he  knew  more  about  it  than  all  his  business 
acquaintances  put  together;  but  in  the  sense  of 
its  clearing  the  vision  so  that  he  could  see»things 
in  a  matter-of-fact  light,  it  was  wholly  unavailing. 
He  was  born  with  the  nervous  organization  of 
the  enthusiast.  That  is  not  the  best  tempera- 
ment imaginable  for  a  practical  business  man. 

And  yet  Inness  certainly  thought  that  his  views 
about  life,  faith,  government,  and  ethics  were 
sound  and  applicable  to  all  humanity.  Art  was 
only  a  part  of  the  universal  plan.  In  his  theory 
of  the  unities  everything  in  the  scheme  entire 
dropped  into  its  appointed  place.  He  could  show 
this,  to  his  own  satisfaction  at  least,  by  the  sym- 
bolism of  numbers,  just  as  he  could  prove  im- 
mortality by  the  argument  for  continuity.  All 
his  life  he  was  devoted  to  mystical  speculations. 
He  had  his  faith  in  divination,  astrology,  spirit- 
ualism, Swedenborgianism.  And  he  was  greatly 
stirred  by  social  questions.  During  the  Rebellion 
he  volunteered  to  fight  for  the  freedom  of  the 
slave  but  was  rejected  as  physically  unfit;  and 
later  he  became  interested  in  la})or  pro})lcms, 
believed  in  Henry  George  and  the  Single  Tax, 


GEORGE  INNESS  23 

and  had  views  about  a  socialistic  republic.  He 
never  changed.  In  his  seventieth  year  he  was 
still  discoursing  on  Swedenborg,  on  love,  on 
truth,  on  the  unities,  with  unabated  enthusiasm. 
To  expect  such  a  man  to  be  "practical"  would 
be  little  less  than  an  absurdity,  and  to  expect 
a  practical  man  to  understand  him  would  be 
almost  as  futile. 

But  the  fever  of  intensity  that  burned  in 
Inness  and  his  visionary  way  of  looking  at  things 
were  the  very  features  that  made  possible  his 
greatness  as  an  artist.  There  is  something  in  the 
abnormal  view — one  hardly  knows  what — that 
makes  for  art.  Certainly  the  "practical"  w^ork  of 
the  camera  gives  only  a  statement  of  fact  where 
the  less  accurate  drawing  of  a  Millet  gives 
something  that  we  call  "artistic."  The  lens  of 
the  camera  records  mechanically  and  coldly, 
which  may  account  for  the  prosaic  quality  of 
photography;  but  the  retina  of  the  artist's  eye 
records  an  impression  enhanced  by  the  imagina- 
tion, which  may  account  for  the  poetry  of  art. 
Whichever  way  we  put  it,  it  is  the  human  ele- 
ment that  makes  the  art.  The  painter  does  not 
record  the  facts  like  a  machine;  he  gives  his  im- 
pression of  the  facts.  Inness,  with  liis  exalted 
way  of  seeing,  was  full  of  impressions  and  was 
always  insisting  upon  their  vital  importance, 

"The  true  j^urpose  of  tlie  painter,"  Mr.  Sheldon 
reports  him  as  saying,  "is  sim])ly  to  reproduce 
in  other  minds  the  impression  which  a  scene  has 


24  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

made  upon  him.  A  work  of  art  is  not  to  instruct, 
yj  not  to  edify,  but  to  awaken  an  emotion.  Its  real 
greatness  consists  in  the  quaHty  and  force  of 
this  emotion." 

And  he  practised  this  preaching.  Such  nervous 
manifestations  as  enthusiasm,  emotion,  and 
imagination  working  together  and  producing  an 
impression  were  the  means  wherewith  he  con- 
structed pictures  in  his  mind.  They  made  up 
his  point  of  view,  and  without  them  we  should 
perhaps  have  heard  little  of  George  Inness  as  a 
painter. 

It  was  no  mean  or  stinted  equipment.  In  fact, 
Inness  had  too  many  impressions,  had  too  much 
imagination.  His  diversity  of  view  opposed 
singleness  of  aim.  While  he  was  trying  to  record 
one  impression  upon  the  canvas,  half  a  dozen 
others  would  rush  in.  Cleveland  Cox,  who  knew 
him  well,  said  that  he  changed  his  mood  and 
point  of  view  with  the  weather,  and  if  he  started 
a  canvas  with  a  storm  piece  in  the  morning,  it 
was  likely  to  end  in  the  evening  with  a  glorious 
sunset,  if  the  weather  corresponded.  He  was 
never  satisfied  with  his  work;  he  was  always  al- 
tering it  and  amending  it,  painting  pictures  one 
on  top  of  another,  until  a  single  canvas  some- 
times held  a  dozen  superimposed  landscapes. 

The  late  William  H.  Fuller  used  to  tell  the 
story  of  bu^'ing  a  landscape  in  Inness's  studio 
one  afternoon  and  going  to  get  the  picture  the 
next    day,    only    to    find    an    entirely    different 


GEORGE  INNESS  25 

picture  on  the  canvas.  To  his  protests  Inness 
repHed : 

"It  is  a  good  deal  better  picture  than  the 
other." 

"Yes,  but  I  Hked  the  other  better." 

"Well,  you  needn't  take  it — needn't  pay  for 
it." 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  losing  money.  I  have  lost 
my  picture.  It  is  buried  under  that  new  one." 

Even  when  not  bothered  by  many  impressions, 
Inness  had  great  difficulty  in  contenting  himself 
with  his  work.  It  was  never  quite  right.  There 
was  a  certain  fine  feeling  or  sentiment  that  he 
had  about  nature  and  he  wished  to  express  it 
in  his  picture;  but  he  found  when  the  sentiment 
was  strong,  the  picture  looked  weak  in  the  draw- 
ing, had  little  solidity  or  substance;  and  when  the 
solidity  was  put  in  with  exact  lines  and  precise 
textures,  then  the  sentiment  fared  badly.  He 
knew  very  well  where  the  trouble  lay. 

"Details  in  the  picture  must  be  -elaborated 
only  enough  fully  to  reproduce  the  impression. 
WTien  more  is  done  the  impression  is  weakened 
and  lost,  and  we  see  simply  an  array  of  external 
things  which  may  be  very  cleverly  painted  and 
may  look  very  real,  but  which  do  not  make  an 
artistic  painting.  The  effort  and  the  difficulty 
of  an  artist  is  to  combine  the  two;  namely,  to 
make  the  thought  clear  and  to  preserve  the 
unity  of  impression.  Meissonier  always  makes  his 
thought  clear;  he  is  most  painstaking  with  de- 


26  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

tails,  but  he  sometimes  loses  in  sentiment.  Co- 
rot,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  some  minds  lacking 
in  objective  force.  He  tried  for  years  to  get 
more  objective  force,  but  he  found  that  what 
he  gained  in  that  respect  he  lost  in  sentiment." 

This  is  Inness's  own  statement  of  the  case  and 
it  enables  us  to  understand  why  many  of  his 
later  canvases  were  vague,  indefinite,  often 
vapory.  He  was  seeking  to  give  a  sentiment  or 
feeHng  rather  than  topographical  facts.  When 
the  facts  looked  too  weak,  he  tried  to  strengthen 
them  here  and  there  by  bringing  out  notes  and 
tones  a  little  sharper  with  the  result  of  making 
them  look  hard  or  too  protruding.  After  several 
passings  back  and  forth  from  strength  to  weak- 
ness, from  sentiment  to  fact,  the  canvas  began 
to  show  a  kneaded  and  thumbed  appearance. 
Its  freshness  was  gone  and  its  surface  looked  tor- 
tured and  *'bready."  He  was  hardly  ever  free 
from  this  attempt  to  balance  between  two  stools. 
It  is  a  plague  that  bothers  all  painters,  and  no 
doubt  many  of  them  would  agree  with  Inness 
in  saying: 

*'If  a  painter  could  unite  Meissonier's  care- 
ful reproduction  of  details  with  Corot's  inspira- 
tional power,  he  would  be  the  very  god  of  art." 

But  Inness  was  much  nearer  to  Corot  than  to 
Meissonier.  He  loved  sentiment  more  than 
clever  technique,  and  perhaps  as  a  result  left 
many  *' swampy"  canvases  behind  him.  His 
studio  was  filled  with  them.  He  used  to  take 


GEORGE  INNESS  27 

them  from  the  floor  and  work  upon  them, 
sometimes  half  a  dozen  in  a  day.  He  never 
was  "the  perfect  master  of  the  brush"  that  we 
have  heard  him  called,  though  he  was  an  ac- 
ceptable, and  often  a  very  powerful,  technician. 
Hejmially  began  by  basing  a  canvas  in  a  warm 
gray  or  a  raw  umber  tint,  afterward  sketching 
in  with  charcoal  or  pencil  the  general  outline 
of  forms  and  objects.  His  pigments  at  first  were 
thin,  and  his  canvas  in  its  general  distribution 
of  masses  was  little  more  than  stained.  Upon 
that  foundation  he  kept  adding  stronger  notes, 
glazing  his  shadows  to  keep  them  transparent 
and  push  them  back,  and  placing  his  opaque 
lights  on  top  of  the  glaze.  In  this  way  he  gradu- 
ally developed  the  picture,  keying  up  first  one 
part  and  then  another,  imtil  finally  he  drew  the 
whole  picture  into  unity  and  harmony. 

It  was  most  interesting  to  see  Inness  at  work 
in  this  keying-up  process.  He  always  painted 
standing,  and  would  walk  backward  and  for- 
ward, putting  on  dabs  here  and  rubs  there  with 
great  expertness.  He  was  a  painter  in  oils, 
seldom  employing  any  otlicr  medium,  and  yet 
he  would  use  on  his  canvas  almost  anything  that 
the  impulse  of  the  moment  told  him  might 
prove  effective.  One  day  I  watched  him  for 
fifteen  minutes  trying  to  deepen  the  shadows  in 
a  tree  willi  a  lead-pencil.  The  canvas  was  dry 
at  the  time  and  he  did  not  want  to  put  any  more 
wet  paint   upon   it.   As  he  painted   he   talked, 


28  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

argued,  declaimed,  glared  at  you  over  the  top 
of  his  glasses  with  apparently  little  embarrass- 
ment to  himself  or  detriment  to  his  canvas. 

Painting  he  believed  he  had  reduced  to  a 
scientific  formula,  but  he  kept  changing  the 
formula.  Rules  of  procedure,  too,  he  had  in 
abundance,  but  they  also  kept  shifting.  At  one 
time  he  insisted  that  a  picture  should  have  three 
planes — the  middle  plane  to  contain  the  centre 
of  interest,  the  foreground  to  be  a  prologue,  and 
the  background  an  epilogue  to  this  central 
plane.  At  another  time  he  would  spread  a  half- 
tone throughout  the  whole  picture,  keeping  his 
sky  low  in  key,  and  upon  this  neutral  ground  he 
w^ould  place  lights  and  darks,  making  them  bril- 
liant and  sparkling  by  contrast.  Others  before 
him — notably  the  Fontainebleau-Barbizon  men 
— had  worked  with  similar  rules  in  mind,  but 
Inness  was  quite  original  in  his  application.  And 
he  was  always  moving  on  to  something  new  and 
better.  Ripley  Hitchcock  quotes  from  one  of 
his  letters: 

"I  have  changed  from  the  time  I  commenced 
because  I  had  never  completed  my  art;  and  as 
I  do  not  care  about  being  a  cake,  I  shall  remain 
dough,  subject  to  any  impression  which  I  am 
satisfied  comes  from  the  region  of  truth." 

What  Inness  was  at  the  time  he  commenced 
may  be  gathered  from  another  quotation  from 
the  same  authority: 

*'My  early  and  much  of  my  later  life  was  borne 


GEORGE  INNESS  29 

under  the  distress  of  a  fearful  nervous  disease 
which  very  much  impaired  my  ability  to  bear 
the  painstaking  in  my  studies  which  I  could  have 
wished.  I  began,  of  course,  as  most  boys  do,  but 
without  any  art  surroundings  whatever.  A  boy 
now  would  be  able  to  commence  almost  any- 
where under  better  auspices  than  I  could  have 
had  then,  even  in  a  city.  I  was  in  the  barefoot 
stage,  and,  although  my  father  was  a  well-to- 
do  farmer,  the  boys  dressed  very  much  in 
Joseph's  coat  style  as  to  color,  the  different 
garments  being  equally  variegated,  while  school- 
ing consisted  of  the  three  R's,  and  a  ruler,  with 
a  rattan  by  way  of  change." 

At  fourteen  Inness  received  some  instruction 
in  drawing  from  a  man  named  Barker,  and  at 
nineteen  he  was  working  as  a  map-engraver  with 
Sherman  and  Smith  in  New  York.  It  is  said 
that  he  engraved  several  plates,  but  Inness  him- 
self evidently  counted  this  apprenticeship  of  lit- 
tle value,  for  he  later  said : 

"When  almost  twenty  I  had  a  month  with 
Regis  Gignoux,  my  health  not  permitting  me  to 
take  advantage  of  study  at  the  Academy  in  the 
evening,  and  this  is  all  the  instruction  I  ever 
had  from  any  artist." 

He  was  virtually  self-taught  as  a  youth,  but 
his  later  work  was  developed  and  somewhat 
influenced  by  the  study  of  other  painters  at 
home  and  abroad.  At  first  he  studied  Cole  and 
Durand,  and  his  pictures  were  rather  panoramic 


30  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

in  theme  and  hard  in  drawing.  He  worked  much 
over  detail,  and  at  this  early  time  must  have 
been  acquired  a  knowledge  of  form  and  a  store 
of  visual  memories  which  were  to  serve  him 
thereafter.  The  brittle  landscapes  of  Inness's 
youth  are  seldom  seen  to-day.  What  became 
of  them  no  one  knows.  He  sold  them  for  any 
sum  that  would  temporarily  keep  the  wolf  from 
the  door,  and,  passing  into  the  hands  of  un- 
appreciative  people,  they  have  perhaps  perished. 
I  never  heard  him  so  much  as  mention  his  very 
early  work,  though  in  his  letter  to  Ripley  Hitch- 
cock he  speaks  of  some  of  his  studies  under 
Gignoux  as  being  *'very  elaborate." 

In  1850  he  was  married,  and  through  the 
assistance  of  one  of  his  patrons,  Mr.  Ogden 
Haggerty,  he  went  to  Italy  and  spent  fifteen 
months  there,  returning  through  Paris,  seeing 
the  Salon,  and  the  work  of  Rousseau  for  the 
first  time. 

"Rousseau  was  just  beginning  to  make  a 
noise.  A  great  many  people  were  grouped  about 
a  little  picture  of  his  which  seemed  to  me  me- 
tallic. Our  traditions  were  English;  and  French 
art,  particularly  in  landscape,  had  made  but 
little  impression  upon  us." 

Just  when  he  made  this  statement  is  not  ap- 
parent, but  certainl}^  it  was  not  his  final  estimate 
of  Rousseau  and  French  landscape.  He  was  later 
on  much  influenced  by  Corot,  Rousseau,  and 
Daubigny;  but  with  his  first  long  stay  in  Europe, 


GEORGE  INNESS  31 

chiefly  near  Rome,  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
the  romance  and  glamour  of  the  place  with  such 
classical  painters  as  Salvator,  Claude,  and 
Poussin  would  sway  him. 

The  second  period  of  his  development,  dating 
from  about  1853  to  1875,  is  full  of  diverse  influ- 
ences. Succeeding  trips  to  Europe  and  repeated 
studies  of  European  art  rather  disturbed  his  pre- 
conceived opinions,  and  made  him  doubtful. 
At  one  time  he  would  work  in  one  vein;  at  an- 
other time  he  would  reverse  himself  and  go 
back  to  his  early  affinities.  It  was  a  period  of 
struggle  not  only  with  his  art  but  with  the  more 
purely  material  affair  of  gaining  a  livelihood. 
He  lived  during  this  time  for  four  years  at 
Medfield,  Massachusetts,  then  at  Eagleswood, 
New  Jersey;  and  in  both  places  painted  some 
notable  canvases,  though  they  were  not  popular 
with  the  buying  public. 

The  "Peace  and  Plenty,"  now  at  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  painted  in  18G5,  is  a  huge 
affair,  and  the  wonder  is  that  it  was  not  a  huge 
failure.  It  is  a  little  too  diversified  in  the  liglits, 
and  a  bit  spott}^  perhaps,  but  it  is  rather 
broadly  handled  with  a  fiat  brush,  and,  all  told, 
a  remarkable  canvas  for  the  time.  It  represents 
him  under  Italian  inspiration.  The  "Evening 
at  Medfield,"  also  in  the  Metropolitan,  painted 
in  1875,  suggests  French  influence,  perhaps 
Daul)igny.  It  is  broader,  freer,  thinner  in  han- 
dling, simpler  in  masses,  and  has   more  unity. 


32  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

None  of  the  pictures  at  this  period  are  counted 
his  best  output,  but  they  are  not  the  less  works 
of  decided  merit. 

It  was  after  four  continuous  years  in  Europe 
(1871-1875)  that  Inness  came  into  a  third 
style  of  work  (the  "Evening  at  Medfield"  in- 
dicates it),  quite  his  own,  quite  American,  and 
quite  splendid.  It  was  during  this  stay  abroad 
that  he  seemed  finally  to  find  himself.  His  brush 
broadened,  his  light  grew  more  subtle,  his  color 
became  richer  and  fuller.  Corot  had  taught  him 
how  to  sacrifice  detail  to  the  mass,  Rousseau  had 
improved  his  use  of  the  tree,  Daubigny  gave  him 
many  hints  about  atmosphere;  from  Decamps 
he  learned  how  to  drive  a  light  with  darks,  and 
Delacroix  opened  to  him  a  gamut  of  deep,  rich 
color.  He  was  now  in  position  to  graft  the  French 
tradition  of  landscape  upon  the  American  stock. 
And  this  he  did,  but  in  his  own  manner  and 
with  many  lapses,  even  failures,  by  the  way. 

All  through  this  third  period,  and  for  that 
matter  up  to  his  death,  Inness  was  experiment- 
ing with  landscape.  Every  canvas  was  a  new 
adventure  in  color,  light,  and  air.  In  his  last 
period  he  seemed  to  see  landscape  in  related 
masses  of  color  rather  than  in  linear  extensions; 
and  so  he  painted  it  holding  the  color  patches 
together  with  air  and  illuminating  the  whole 
mass  by  a  half-mysterious  light.  It  was  not 
attenuated  color — mauves,  pinks,  and  sad  grays 
— but   strong  reds,  blues,   greens,   and  yellov/s 


w 


GEORGE  INNESS  S3 

keyed  up  oftentimes  to  a  high  pitch  and  fire- 
hued  by  sunHght.  Nor  were  they  put  on  the  can- 
vas in  Httle  dots  and  dabs,  but  rather  shown  in 
large  masses  brought  together  for  massed  effect 
and  made  resonant  by  contrast. 
Almost  all  of  his  later  pictures  will  be  found 
to  hinge  upon  color,  light,  and  atmosphere. 
He  was  very  fond  of  moisture-laden  air,  rain 
effects,  clouds,  rainbows,  mists,  vapors,  fogs, 
smokes,  hazes — all  phases  of  the  atmosphere. 
In  the  same  way  he  fancied  dawns,  dusks,  twi- 
lights, moonlights,  sunbursts,  flying  shadows, 
clouded  lights — all  phases  of  illumination.  And 
again,  he  loved  sunset  colors,  cloud  colors, 
sky  colors,  autumn  tints,  winter  blues,  spring 
grays,  summer  greens — all  phases  of  coloi\^nd 
these  not  for  themselves  alone,  but  rather  for 
the  impression  or  effect  that  they  produced. 
If  he  painted  a  moonlight,  it  was  with  a  great  v 
spread  of  silvery  radiance,  a  hushed  effect  in 
the  trees,  a  still  air,  and  the  mystery  of  things 
half  seen;  when  he  painted  an  early  spring 
morning,  he  gave  the  vapor  rising  from  the 
ground,  with  dampness  in  the  air,  voyaging 
clouds,  and  a  warming  blue  in  the  sky;  with  an 
Indian  summer  afternoon  there  was  the  drowsy 
hum  of  nature  lost  in  dreamland  and  the  inde- 
finable regret  of  things  passing  away.  His 
"Rainy  Day — Montclair"  has  the  bend  and 
droop  of  foliage  heavy  with  rain,  the  sense  of 
saturation  in  earth  and  air,  the  suggestion  of  the 


34  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

very  smell  of  rain.  The  "Delaware  Water  Gap" 
shows  the  drive  of  a  storm  down  the  valley, 
with  the  sweep  of  the  wind  felt  in  the  clouds, 
the  trees,  and  the  water.  The  "Summer  Silence" 
is  well  named,  for  again  it  gives  that  feeling  of 
the  hushed  woods  in  July,  the  deep  shadows, 
the  dense  foliage  that  seems  to  sleep  and  softly 
breathe. 

Always  the  impression — the  feeling  which  he 
himself  felt  in  the  presence  of  nature  and  tried 
to  give  back  in  form  and  color  upon  canvas. 
I  remember  very  well  standing  beside  him  be- 
fore his  "Niagara"  and  hearing  him  say  what 
interested  him  in  that  scene.  It  was  not  so 
much  the  thundering  mass  of  the  waters,  the 
volume  and  power,  the  sublimity  of  the  cataract, 
as  the  impression  of  clouds  of  mist  and  vapor 
boiling  up  from  the  great  caldron  and  being 
struck  into  color-splendor  by  the  sunlight. 
Only  an  Inness  in  the  presence  of  Niagara  could 
have  thrown  emphasis  upon  so  ethereal  a  phase 
as  its  mists  and  color.  They  made  the  impression 
and  he  responded  to  it. 

Every  feature  of  landscape  had  its  peculiar 
sentiment  to  him.  He  said  so  many  times  and 
with  no  uncertain  voice: 

"Rivers,  streams,  the  rippling  brook,  the  hill- 
side, the  sky,  clouds — all  things  that  we  see — 
can  convey  sentiment  if  we  are  in  the  love  of 
God  and  the  desire  of  truth.  Some  persons  sup- 
pose that  landscape  has  no  power  of  convey- 


GEORGE  INNESS  35 

ing  human  sentiment.  But  this  is  a  great  mis- 
take. The  civihzed  landscape  peculiarly  can ;  and 
therefore  I  love  it  more  and  think  it  more 
worthy  of  reproduction  than  that  which  is 
savage  and  untamed.  It  is  more  significant." 

That  last  statement  of  his  about  the  civilized 
landscape  is  well  worth  noting,  because  that 
was  the  landscape  he  paintedy/ His  subjects 
are  related  to  human  life,  and  some  of  our 
interest  in  his  pictures  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  gives  us  thoughts,  emotions,  and  sensations 
that  are  comprehensible  by  all.  He  tells  things 
that  every  one  may  have  thought  but  no  one 
before  him  so  well  expressed.  In  other  words, 
he  brings  our  own  familiar  landscape  home  to 
us  with  new  truth  and  beauty .^his,  it  may  be 
presumed,  is  the  function  of  the  poet  and  the 
painter  in  any  land.  It  was  the  quality  that 
made  Burns  and  Wordsworth  great  and  may 
account  in  measure  for  the  fame  of  Rembrandt, 
Hobbema,  Constable — yes,  and  Inness. 

When  he  was  young  there  were  traditions  of 
the  Hudson  River  school  in  the  air.  The 
"mappy"  landscape  with  its  crude  color  and 
theatrical  composition  held  the  place  of  honor. 
Inness  was  probably  captivated  bj^  it  at  first 
sight,  but  he  soon  discovered  its  emptiness.  It 
had  no  basis  in  nature;  it  was  not  the  landscape 
we  see  and  know.  The  "Course  of  Empire"  and 
the  "Voyage  of  Youth"  were  only  names  for 
studio  fabrications.  The  truly  poetic  landscape 


S6  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

lay  nearer  home.  This  was  what  Inness  called 
the  "civilized  landscape,"  the  familiar  land- 
scape, the  paysage  intimey  the  one  we  all  see  and 
know  because  it  has  always  been  before  us — its 
very  nearness  perhaps  blinding  us  to  its  beauty. 

How  hard  it  is  to  believe  that  the  true  poetry 
of  the  world  lies  close  about  us !  We  keep  fancy- 
ing that  romance  is  not  in  our  native  village, 
but  in  Rome  or  Constanti^nople  or  Cairo;  and 
that  the  poetic  landscape  is  not  that  of  the  wood- 
lot  behind  the  house,  but  that  of  Arden  Forest 
or  some  Hesperidian  garden  far  removed  from 
us.  Emerson  has  noted  that  at  sea  every  ship 
looks  romantic  but  the  one  we  sail  in.  Yet  there 
is  plenty  of  romance  in  our  ship  if  we  have  the 
eyes  to  see  it;  and  there  is  abundance  of  beauty 
in  the  wood-lot  if  we  have  the  intentness  of  pur- 
pose to  study  it  out  and  understand  it.  Any  one 
can  admire  the  "view"  from  a  mountain -top, 
but  it  takes  some  imagination  to  see  beauty  in 
the  quiet  meadow.  And  after  you  have  seen  it 
it  requires  a  great  deal  of  labor  and  skill  to  tell 
what  you  have  seen.  Wordsworth  and  Constable 
made  more  failures  with  it  than  successes.  Just 
so  with  Inness.  He  shot  wide  of  the  mark  in- 
numerable times,  but  when  he  hit,  it  was  with 
very  decided  effect. 

A  love  of  the  familiar  landscape  would  seem 
to  have  always  been  with  Inness.  After  a  period 
of  following  the  Hudson  River  panorama  of 
nature  undefiled  by  man,  he  gave  it  up.  While 


GEORGE  INNESS  37 

in  Rome  he  produced  some  semiclassic  land- 
scapes, but  he  gave  them  up,  too.  Not  so  with 
the  Fontainebleau-Barbizon  landscape.  Rous- 
seau and  his  band  had  broken  with  the  classic 
and  were  producing  the  paysage  intime  to  which 
Hobbema  (not  Constable,  of  whom  they  knew 
nothing)  had  called  their  attention  through  his 
pictures  in  the  Louvre.  They  had  done  in  France 
just  what  Inness  had  sought  to  do  in  America: 
they  had  abandoned  the  grandiloquent  and  put 
in  its  place  the  familiar.  Inness  was  in  sympathy 
with  them  almost  from  the  moment  he  first  saw 
their  work.  Had  he  been  born  in  France,  no 
doubt  he  would  have  been  a  member  of  the 
Rousseau-Dupre  group. 

Ag-ain  it  is  worth  noticing  in  passing  that  all  of 
the  so-called  "men  of  1830"  were  really  provin- 
cial in  what  they  produced.  Corot  painted  Ville 
d'Avray,  Rousseau,  Dupre,  and  Diaz  the  Fon- 
tainebleau  forest,  Daubigny  the  Seine  and  the 
Marne.  None  of  their  work  represents  the  south 
or  the  east  of  France,  and  none  of  it  carries  be- 
yond France.  It  is  localized  about  Paris.  Just  so 
with  the  work  of  Inness.  It  is  emphatically 
American,  but  limited  to  the  North  Atlantic 
States.  The  appearances  which  he  portrayed  are 
peculiar  to  the  region  lying  east  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies.  In  his  pictures  the  light  and  coloring, 
the  forms  and  drift  of  clouds,  the  mists  and 
hazes,  the  trees  and  hills,  the  swamps  and  mead- 
ows may  be  recognized  as  belonging  to  New 


38  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Jersey  or  New  York  or  New  England,  but  none 
of  them  belongs  to  Minnesota  or  Louisiana  or 
California.  He  pictured  the  American  land- 
scape perhaps  more  completely  than  any  other 
painter  before  or  since  his  time;  but  his  "civi- 
lized landscape"  was  nevertheless  limited  as 
regards  its  geographical  range. 

Nor  would  we  have  it  otherwise.  All  the  mas- 
ters of  art  have  been  provincial  so  far  as  subject 
goes.  Titian,  Velasquez,  and  Rembrandt  never 
cared  to  go  beyond  their  own  bailiwicks  for 
material.  And  Inness — though  he  may  not  rank 
with  those  just  mentioned — found  all  the  ma- 
terial he  needed  within  fifty  miles  of  New  York. 
It  was  the  discovery  of  this  material,  his  point 
of  view  regarding  it,  what  he  did  with  it,  and 
what  he  made  us  see  in  it,  that  perhaps  gives 
him  his  high  rank  in  American  art. 

The  man  and  his  impulsive  nature  never 
changed,  though  he  kept  shifting  his  methods 
and  his  point  of  view  from  year  to  year.  He  went 
his  own  pace  and  was  always  something  of  a  re- 
cluse. The  art  movements  about  him  interested 
him  in  only  a  slight  way.  The  Academy  of  De- 
sign honored  him  with  membership,  but  he  cared 
little  about  it.  The  Society  of  American  Artists 
elected  him  a  member  also,  but  he  cared  even 
less  for  the  brilliant  painting  of  the  young  men 
than  for  the  weak  performances  of  the  acad- 
emicians. He  kept  very  much  to  himself  and 
painted  on  in  his  own  absorbed,  impulsive  fash- 


GEORGE  INNESS  39 

ion.  His  studio  was  only  a  bare  barn  of  a  room 
with  a  few  crazy  chairs  in  it.  Wall -hangings,  stuffs, 
screens,  brass  pots,  shields,  spears — the  artistic 
plunder  which  one  usually  finds  in  a  painter's 
apartment — he  regarded  as  so  much  trumpery. 
In  his  later  days  he  came  and  went  to  his  studio 
from  Montclair,  seeing  landscapes  out  of  the 
car-window,  and  in  his  mind's  eye  seeing  them 
upon  his  canvases.  His  art  swayed  him  com- 
pletely. 

He  had  no  pupils,  though  he  corrected,  advised, 
and  instructed  many  young  painters  after  his 
own  method.  It  was  a  decidedly  arbitrary  teach- 
ing. Elliott  Daingerfield  tells  a  story  of  one  of 
his  own  landscapes  in  which  a  rail  fence  was 
running  down  into  the  foreground.  When  Inness 
was  asked  in  to  criticise  the  canvas,  he  objected 
to  the  fence  and  said  it  should  be  taken  out. 

"Why  can't  I  have  the  fence  there  if  I  want 
it.f^"  Daingerfield  protested.  To  which  Inness 
replied : 

"You  can  if  you  want  to  be  an  idiot." 

His  criticism  of  older  painters  and  pictures 
was  just  as  unqualified.  And  in  matters  outside 
of  art,  where  he  spoke  with  no  peculiar  authoritj^ 
his  vehemence  was  no  less.  Crossing  on  the 
Arizona  in  1887,  he  to  Iked  every  one  out  of  the 
smoking-room  on  the  Single  Tax  question,  so 
a  friend  informs  me.  In  1894,  when  I  happened 
to  be  crossing  with  him,  he  was  as  positive 
as  ever  about  his  religious,  socialistic,  and  politi- 


40  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

cal  convictions.  His  interest  and  enthusiasm 
were  in  no  degree  abated.  In  the  mornings  he 
sat  on  deck  wrapped  up  in  rugs  under  the  lee 
of  a  Hfe-boat,  and  amused  himself  doing  ex- 
amples in  vulgar  fractions  out  of  an  ordinary 
school  arithmetic;  but  in  the  afternoon  he  liked 
to  talk,  and  I  was  a  willing  listener,  though  I 
had  heard  him  discourse  many  times. 

Every  one  remembers  his  caustic  criticism  of 
Turner's  "Slave  Ship."  He  always  had  a  kick 
for  Turner,  though  at  heart  he  admired  him, 
and  in  many  respects  his  own  methods  were 
very  like  that  master.  They  both  worked  from 
visual  memory.  Turner  putting  in  what  pleased 
him  in  architecture,  people,  and  boats;  and 
Inness  putting  in  cows  or  bridges  or  wagons,  as 
pleased  him.  Neither  painter  resorted  to  the 
model  or  to  a  sketch  for  these  accessories.  They 
painted  them  out  of  their  heads,  and  sometimes 
they  were  vague  in  drawing  or  false  in  light- 
ing. The  only  difference  was  that  Turner 
took  more  liberties  with  his  text  than  Inness, 
and  often  lost  truth  of  tone.  This  gave  Inness 
his  chance  to  say  that  Turner  was  a  painter  of 
claptrap — his  detail  was  spotty,  he  could  paint 
figures  in  a  boat,  but  he  couldn't  paint  a  boat 
with  figures. 

For  Gainsborough  he  had  some  admiration, 
and  in  his  early  days  rather  followed  him,  but 
he  outgrew  the  brown-fiddle  tone  of  Gainsbor- 
ough's foliage  and  came  to  think  his  work  lacking 


GEORGE  INNESS  41 

in  color.  Constable,  too,  he  admired,  perhaps  be- 
cause he  painted  the  greens  of  fohage  very 
frankly;  but  his  light  and  color  were  cold. 
Turner's  heat  and  Constable's  cold  he  did  not 
believe  could  both  come  out  of  England,  except 
through  subjective  distortion.  The  pictures  of 
Watts,  he  insisted,  looked  as  though  dipped  in 
a  sewer,  so  unhealthy  and  morbid  were  they 
in  color.  This  referred  to  the  later  pictures  of 
Watts  which  Inness  had  seen  in  a  loan  collec- 
tion exhibited  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  He 
was  fond  of  brilliant  color  himself,  and  evidently 
he  had  never  studied  the  earlier  and  middle-pe- 
riod pictures  of  Watts.  Wilson  he  liked,  though 
recognizing  that  he  was  merely  a  reviser  of  the 
old  classic  formula  of  landscape.  But  Wilson 
knew  how  to  handle  his  sky  and  could  tie  things 
together  with  atmosphere. 

Corot  was  a  very  pretty  painter — and  by 
"pretty,"  Inness  meant  clever.  He  wagged  his 
head  in  saying  it  and  smiled  as  though  the 
statement  were  incontestable.  The  sentiment  of 
light  and  air  with  Corot  was  something  that 
Inness  thoroughly  understood.  And  he  greatly 
fancied  Corot's  composition.  At  one  time  he 
painted  pictures  that  have  a  Corotesque  arrange- 
ment— notably  the  "Wood  Gatherers,"  formerly 
in  the  Clarke  Collection.  What  he  did  not  under- 
stand was  Corot's  monotony  of  color,  or,  as  other 
painters  expressed  it,  Corot's  refinement  of  color. 
Millet  was  wonderful,  especially  in  his  landscape- 


42  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

work,  which  had  attracted  so  Httle  attention. 
Delacroix  was  one  of  the  great  gods  for  his 
wonderful  gamut  of  color,  if  nothing  else. 
And  so  on. 

The  steamer  trip  in  1894  was  the  last  one  that 
Inness  made.  He  died  that  summer  at  the 
Bridge  of  Allan  in  Scotland.  His  funeral  was 
held  in  the  National  Academy  of  Design  In 
New  York,  and  the  Swedenborgian  minister 
who  officiated,  in  the  course  of  his  eulogy,  said : 
*' Those  of  you  who  knew  George  Inness  knew 
how  intense  a  man  he  was."  *' Intense"  Is  ex- 
actly descriptive  of  the  man.  He  was  keyed  up 
all  his  life  and  worked  with  feverish  intensity. 
But  the  word  does  not  describe  his  art,  for  that 
has  no  feeling  of  stress  or  strain  about  it. 
Sometimes  one  is  conscious  of  Its  vagueness,  as 
though  the  painter  were  groping  a  way  out 
toward  the  light — a  vagueness  that  holds  the 
mystery  of  things  half  seen,  a  beautiful  glimpse 
of  half-revealed  impressions.  But  usually  his 
pictures  are  serene,  hushed,  and  yet  radiant  with 
the  glow  of  eternal  sun-fires  from  sky  or  cloud. 

They  were  lofty  and  poetic  impressions,  and 
the  loftier  they  were  the  more  intense  the 
painter's  effort  to  reveal  them.  The  heights  of 
Parnassus  are  very  calm,  but  they  are  not 
reached  without  a  struggle.  The  great  ones — 
those  who  scale  the  upper  peaks — are  perhaps 
the  most  Intensive  strugglers  of  all.  Inness  was 
one  of  them. 


Ill 

ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT 


Ill 

ALEXANDER  H.   T\'YAXT 

It  was  Corot  who  declared  that  in  art  Rousseau 
was  an  eagle  and  he  himself  was  merely  a  lark 
singing  a  song  from  the  meadow-grasses.  The 
contrast  and  the  comparison  are  not  inappHcable 
to  two  of  our  own  painters.  Wyant  never  pos- 
sessed the  wide  range  or  the  far-seeing  eye  of 
Inness,  but  he  had  something  about  him  of 
Corot's  mood  and  charm.  He,  too,  was  a  lark, 
or  should  we  say  a  wood-thrush  singing  along 
the  edge  of  an  American  forest  ?  He  had  only  a 
few  mellow  notes,  yet  we  would  not  be  without 
them.  They  still  charm  us.  And  it  is  not  certain 
that  in  the  long  account  of  time  the  direct 
and  simple  utterances  of  Corot  and  Wyant  may 
not  outlive  the  wide  truth  of  Rousseau  and  the 
vision  splendid  of  Inness.  More  than  once  in 
a?sthetic  storv  the  son^s  of  a  Burns  have  been 
held  more  precious  than  the  tumults  of  a  Milton. 
The  wonder  of  Wyant 's  success  is  greater  than 
that  of  Inness,  for  his  boyhood  surroundings,  if 
anything,  were  less  stimulating  and  his  pictorial 
education  far  more  restricted.  Besides,  Inness 
lived  on  to  seventv  vears,  but  Wvaut  died  at 
fifty-six,    having    endured    ill-health,    and    for 

45 


46  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

the  last  ten  years  of  his  Hfe — his  best  working 
years^been  paralyzed  in  his  right  arm  and 
hand.  Living  much  to  himself,  something  of  a 
hermit  in  his  mountain  home,  weighed  down  by 
misfortunes  and  disappointments,  the  wonder 
grows  that  he  not  only  kept  up  and  improved 
his  technique  to  the  end,  but  that  he  preserved 
his  serenity  of  mood  and  purity  of  outlook 
through  it  all.  He  must  have  been  a  man  with 
fortitude  of  soul  beyond  the  average.  It  is  not 
every  painter  that  can  turn  stumbling-blocks 
into  stepping-stones. 

Wyant  was  the  typical  barefoot  boy  of  the 
near  West  in  the  days  before  the  Civil  War.  He 
was  born  in  1836  at  Evans  Creek,  Tuscarawas 
County,  Ohio,  and  his  boyhood  and  early  youth 
were  far  removed  from  anything  like  the  mad- 
ding crowd.  His  parents  were  Americans  of  the 
soil,  his  father  being  a  farmer  and  carpenter 
of  Pennsylvania  extraction,  and  his  mother  of 
Dutch-Irish  descent.  They  were  nomadic,  after 
the  manner  of  border  people,  and  soon  left  Evans 
Creek  to  live  in  or  near  Defiance,  where  Wyant 
learned  his  three  R's  in  the  village  school.  There 
were  less  than  one  thousand  people  in  the  town 
at  that  time,  and  what  Wyant  got  out  of  it  by 
way  of  enlightenment  or  encouragement  must 
have  been  meagre.  As  a  boy  he,  no  doubt, 
roamed  the  woods,  fished  the  streams,  and 
trailed  along  the  Ohio  hilltops;  and  at  this 
time,  unconsciously  perhaps,  he  was  storing  up 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  47 

visual  memories  of  appearances  that  were  to 
be  of  service  to  him  later  on. 

That  he  had  an  eye  and  was  an  observer  from 
the  start  comes  to  us  in  the  tales  told  of  his 
boyish  sketches  on  the  floor  made  with  char- 
coal from  the  wood-fire.  At  least  they  showed 
an  inclination  that  was  afterward  to  develop  into 
a  passion.  But  the  inclination  found  no  imme- 
diate outlet.  After  leaving  school  the  youth 
served  as  an  apprentice  in  a  harness-shop,  but 
he  did  not  care  for  harness-making.  He  pre- 
ferred to  paint  photographs,  cards,  signs — al- 
most anything  that  could  be  done  with  a  brush. 
At  twenty-one  he  went  to  Cincinnati  and  for 
the  first  time  saw  some  paintings  in  oil.  Before 
that  his  ideas  of  art  had  been  bounded  by  book 
illustration  and  the  omnipresent  chromo.  It 
is  said  that  among  the  pictures  he  saw  at  Cin- 
cinnati was  something  by  Inness.  The  young 
man  was  impressed  by  it,  or  by  the  reports 
about  Inness,  for  he  took  the  train  to  New 
York  to  consult  that  master  about  art  as  a  voca- 
tion. 

He  found  Inness  at  Eagleswood,  near  Perth 
Amboy.  How  long  he  stopped  there  and  what 
was  said  we  do  not  know,  but  the  master  was 
encouraging,  and  the  young  man  went  back  to 
Cincinnati  determined  to  be  a  painter.  He  had 
a  right  instinct  about  art  at  that  early  time  or 
he  never  would  have  cliosen  Inness  for  a  coun- 
sellor. The  famous  landscape-painters  then  were 


48  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Kensett  and  Church.  Inness  was  the  most  pro- 
gressive, the  most  ultra-modern  of  the  time, 
and  had  not  yet  won  universal  applause.  He 
did  not  paint  enough  in  detail  for  the  man  in 
the  street,  and  evidently  he  must  have  given 
Wyant  his  argument  for  breadth  of  view  over 
detail,  for,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  Wyant  had 
it  almost  from  the  start.  But  perhaps  the  most 
and  the  best  that  he  got  from  Inness  was 
inspiration. 

Back  in  Cincinnati  and  painting  pictures  after 
his  own  formula,  Wyant  found  a  purchaser  and 
a  patron  in  Nicholas  Longworth.  It  became  pos- 
sible for  him  shortly  thereafter  to  move  to 
New  York.  There,  in  1863,  he  saw  a  large  exhibi- 
tion of  Diisseldorf  pictures  that  probably  stirred 
his  imagination.  Pictures  in  America  at  that 
time  were  rather  scarce,  and  any  exhibition  of 
foreign  work  would  be  more  impressive  then 
than  now.  The  next  year  he  exhibited  at  the 
National  Academy  of  Design  for  the  first  time, 
and  in  1865  he  went  to  Europe  on  a  Diisseldorf 
pilgrimage,  impelled  thereto  by  a  mountain-and- 
waterfall  landscape  of  Gude  which  he  had  seen 
in  New  York. 

He  went  straight  to  Gude  at  Carlsruhe  and 
put  himself  under  his  tutelage.  Gude  was  a 
Norwegian  painter,  influenced  by  Dahl,  and  im- 
bued with  the  Diisseldorf  method  and  point  of 
view.  The  grand  landscape — panoramic  in  ex- 
tent and  mountainous  in  height,  with  a  hot  sun 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  49 

in  the  heavens — was  then  in  vogue,  and  Achen- 
bach  was  its  prophet.  From  Wyant's  short  stay 
with  Gude  it  seems  that  his  enthusiasm  was 
soon  chilled  down  to  zero.  In  after-life  he  often 
referred  to  the  great  kindness  of  Gude  and  his 
wife,  but  he  seemed  to  think  that  his  instruc- 
tion in  art  had  been  fundamentally  wrong.  His 
pupil,  Bruce  Crane,  says  that  he  spoke  of  his 
art  environment  there  as  being  "a  miserable 
one,"  and  Wyant  believed  that  "environment 
played  the  greater  part  in  the  making  of  a 
painter  for  good  or  bad." 

He  left  Gude  and  started  back  to  America, 
but  stopped  on  the  way  in  England  and  Ireland, 
where  he  studied  pictures  and  painted  some  of 
his  own.  The  old  masters  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery apparently  did  not  make  a  strong  appeal  to 
him.  His  work  shows  no  sign  of  Claude,  Salvator, 
Poussin,  Ruysdael,  Hobbema,  or  Cuyp.  Even 
Gainsborough  and  the  ascendant  Turner  seem 
to  have  left  him  cold.  But  Constable  he  liked 
very  much.  Here  at  last  was  a  man  seeing  things 
in  a  large  way  and  doing  them  with  breadth  of 
brush.  Moreover,  he  was  doing  simple  tran- 
scripts of  nature,  not  the  panorama  of  blazing 
perspective.  In  America  Wyant  had  inherited 
something  of  the  spectacular  from  his  Hudson 
River  predecessors;  Dusseldorf  had  aided  the 
conception,  and  Turner  had  abetted  it;  but 
Constable  seemed  to  be  against  it.  Wyant  was 
inclined    to    renounce    it.    Constable    produced 


60  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

the  broad  realistic  look,  and  at  that  time  Wyant 
had  probably  not  arrived  at  any  other  concep- 
tion of  art  than  as  a  large  transcript  of  nature. 
Ruskin's  doctrine  of  fidelity  to  fact  was  in  the 
air,  and  the  landscape  as  emotional  expression, 
or  as  a  symphony,  or  even  as  a  decorative  pat- 
tern, was  little  known  either  in  the  studios  or  the 
critic's  den.  There  was,  however,  plenty  of  con- 
troversy going  on.  And  yet  fresh  from  varying 
theories  and  impressions,  Wyant  went  over 
to  Ireland  and  painted  pictures  that  bore  no  ear- 
mark of  any  painter  or  any  school. 

In  the  Metropolitan  Museum  there  is  an  Irish 
landscape  by  him  done  in  1866 — "View  in 
County  Kerry,  Ireland."  There  are  gray  moun- 
tains at  the  back,  a  green  foreground  with  a  pool 
of  water,  a  gray-blue  and  whitish  sky,  a  gray 
atmosphere.  At  the  right  middle  distance  is  a 
white  cottage.  The  rest  is  treeless  upland 
running  into  mountain  heights  that  are  lost  in 
haze  and  cloud.  The  picture  is  not  only  remark- 
able for  its  simplicity  of  composition  but  its 
absence  of  small  objects  or  distracting  details. 
Though  a  mountain  landscape,  it  is  broadly 
seen,  largely  and  simply  massed,  and  painted 
with  a  broad  flat  brush.  It  may  have  been  re- 
painted in  later  years,  but  I  am  willing  to  be- 
lieve from  the  breadth  of  its  composition  that 
it  was  painted  broadly  to  correspond,  and  is 
to-day  substantially  as  w^hen  originally  done. 

This  picture  is  in  somewhat  violent  contrast 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  51 

with  another  Wyant  landscape  hanging  in  the 
same  gallery  and  dated  in  the  same  year — 1866. 
I  refer  to  the  large  "Mohawk  Valley"  landscape 
— an  excellent  picture,  though  evidencing  limi- 
tations perhaps  peculiar  to  America.  It  is  a 
huge  valley  view  with  a  gorge  and  stream  in 
the  foreground  running  down  to  a  fall  from  which 
mist  is  rising.  The  stream  as  a  pool  is  seen 
again  emerging  in  the  middle  distance.  A  half- 
lighted  sky  with  falling  rain  at  the  left  and  warm 
grays  of  clouds  and  blues  of  distance  make  up 
the  background,  while  in  the  foreground  a  tall 
tree  at  the  left  is  balanced  by  a  group  of  lesser 
trees  at  the  right.  The  whole  color-tone  is  warm 
(probably  from  underbasing) ,  especially  in  the 
foreground,  which  shows  in  grays  and  browns. 
It  is  a  symmetrical  composition  with  a  central 
point  of  sight,  and  in  its  detailed  elaboration 
gives  no  hint  of  selection  or  sacrifice.  The  trees, 
the  ledges  of  rock  in  the  foreground,  the  water, 
the  clouds  are  all  exactly  drawn  and  realized  to 
the  last  item,  each  one  having  quite  as  much 
importance  as  its  fellow.  As  for  the  painting,  it  is 
thin,  kept  thin  to  allow  the  underbasing  to  show 
through;  but  it  is  flatly  painted,  not  stippled. 
In  the  latter  respect  it  is  an  advance  on,  say, 
Church's  panorama,  "Heart  of  the  Andes,"  in 
the  same  gallery,  where  the  stippling  with  white 
paint  produces  a  glittering,  bedizened  surface, 
and  the  minute  drawing  of  leaves  in  the  fore- 
ground runs  into  petty  niggling. 


52  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Now,  the  "Mohawk  Valley"  was  probably 
completed  just  before  Wyant  went  to  Europe; 
at  least  in  method  it  antedates  the  "County 
Kerry,  Ireland,"  landscape  of  the  same  year.* 
It  is  a  very  important  picture  and  represents 
the  culmination  of  Wyant's  early  style — a  beau- 
tiful picture  for  any  place  or  period  or  painter 
to  have  produced.  It  shows  Wyant's  original 
point  of  view,  with  some  of  the  influences  that 
must  have  come  to  him  from  the  Hudson  River 
school,  from  Inness,  from  various  unknown 
American  sources.  But  the  "County  Kerry,  Ire- 
land," landscape  shows  a  departure,  a  widen- 
ing, and  a  broadening  of  both  brush  and  vision 
which  were  to  increase  and  expand  thereafter 
into  a  second  style — the  style  of  Wyant's  later 
and  nobler  canvases.  To  this  style  Wyant  was 
undoubtedly  helped  at  first  by  what  he  saw 
abroad,  especially  by  the  pictures  of  Constable. 

This  was  a  time  of  rapid  production  with  Wyant 
and  he  was  always  afire  with  his  theme.  The 
recognition  of  artists  was  coming  to  him  if  not 
the  large  patronage  of  the  public.  His  picture 

*  "In  regard  to  the  two  pictures  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  'View  in 
County  Kerry,  Ireland, '  and  the  '  Mohawk  Valley, '  I  never  could  recon- 
cile myself  to  the  idea  that  they  were  both  painted  in  1866.  There  is  no 
doubt  about  the  'Mohawk  Valley'  because  its  manner  is  so  much  like 
the  many  canvases  of  that  period  which  Wyant  often  showed  me  and 
which  Mrs.  Wyant  destroyed  after  his  death.  The  'View  in  County 
Kerry,  Ireland, '  marks  a  new  period  in  his  art  and  the  widely  different 
handling  as  well  as  view-point  are  too  much  to  have  been  acquired  in 
one  year.  There  is  certainly  some  mistake  in  the  date — I  should  say  a 
difference  of  ten  years.  At  some  time  that  picture  has  been  cleaned  and 
the  restorer  accidentally  destroying  the  date  restored  it  incorrectly." — 
(Bruce  Crane  in  a  letter  to  the  writer,  December  13,  1917.) 


ffi  ^ 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  53 

of  a  "View  on  the  Susquehanna"  resulted  in  his 
being  elected  an  associate  of  the  National  Acad- 
emy in  1868,  and  he  was  named  a  full  acad- 
emician in  18G9.  But  ill-health  was  with  him, 
and  in  the  hope  of  improving  his  physical  con- 
dition and  at  the  same  time  gathering  material 
for  his  art,  he  joined  in  1873  a  government 
expedition  to  New  Mexico  and  Arizona.  There 
were  many  hardships  on  the  trip,  and  Wyant's 
never  very  robust  constitution  broke  down  under 
the  strain.  He  was  put  on  the  train  and  sent  back 
East.  It  is  said  that  on  the  way  East  he  passed 
his  home  town  of  Defiance,  but  would  not  get 
off.  Ill  as  he  was,  with  few  friends  and  less 
money,  he  determined  to  go  on  to  New  York  and 
fight  it  out.  The  fine  courage  of  all  that  becomes 
more  marked  when  we  understand  that  the 
illness  was  so  severe  that  it  had  resulted  at 
Fort  Wingate  in  paralysis  of  his  right  hand  and 
arm.  He  was  never  to  paint  with  his  right  hand 
again.  It  was  a  crippled  painter  coming  back  to 
New  York— crippled  in  a  vital  spot — but  he  had 
determined  that  his  left  hand  should  be  trained 
to  service.  And  it  was. 

The  West  not  only  maimed  him  physically 
but  apparently  taught  him  nothing  artistically. 
The  deserts  that  he  crossed  with  their  red 
porpliyry  mountains,  dull-yellow  sands,  and 
gas-blue  air — the  most  wonderful  landscapes 
in  the  world  in  their  definition  of  form  and  their 
quality  of  color — sccni  to  have  made  no  imprcs- 


54  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

sion  whatever  upon  him.  This  is  understandable 
only  by  considering  the  inheritance  of  tradition 
and  environment.  In  Wyant's  time  a  handsome 
landscape  meant  a  mountain -valley  with  forests, 
rocks,  waterfalls,  and  the  variegated  foliage  of 
summer  or  autumn.  The  desert  was  unknown 
and  remained  for  a  later  generation  of  painters 
to  discover;  the  plains  were  unpainted  and 
thought  unpaintable;  even  the  marsh  and  the 
meadow,  which  Corot  loved,  were  considered  too 
slight  for  art.  The  grand-view  conception  in 
landscape-painting  died  hard.  In  Wyant's  time 
it  was  very  much  alive.  Naturally  enough,  he 
was  impressed  by  it,  and  though  in  later  life  he 
did  many  small  intimate  bits  of  nature,  he  never 
got  away  entirely  from  the  wide  mountain - 
valley  theme. 

He  was,  in  fact,  always  a  mountain  lover.  After 
his  return  to  New  York  he  spent  much  of  his 
summer-time  in  the  Adirondacks.  He  was  then 
deeply  interested  in  the  pictures  of  the  Bar- 
bizon-Fontainebleau  painters  which  were  com- 
ing into  the  United  States.  So  outspoken  was  his 
admiration  for  Rousseau  that  he  sent  a  picture 
to  the  Academy  with  the  title  *'In  the  Spirit  of 
Rousseau."  His  own  style  was  growing  broader 
and  simpler  each  year,  and,  strange  enough,  the 
public  was  buying  his  pictures.  He  became 
measurably  prosperous,  had  a  studio  in  the 
Y.M.C.A.  Building  in  Twenty-third  Street,  and 
received  a  number  of  pupils.  One  of  his  pupils, 
a  Miss  Locke,  he  married  in  1880. 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  55 

After  his  marriage  much  time  was  spent  in 
the  Keene  Valley,  and  in  1889  he  moved  to 
Arkville  in  the  Catskills,  where  with  a  fine 
sweeping  outlook  from  his  porch  upon  woods, 
valleys,  and  hills  he  found  enough  material  to 
last  him  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  saw  little  of  the 
town  thereafter.  He  had  never  mingled  freely 
with  his  fellow  man.  The  Society  of  American 
Artists  had  honored  him  with  membership  in 
1878,  he  was  a  founder  of  the  American  Water- 
Color  Society,  and  a  member  of  the  Century 
Association,  but  he  always  held  somewhat  aloof 
from  them.  Friendly  enough  with  painters  and 
people  who  sought  him,  he  was,  nevertheless, 
a  little  shy,  which  perhaps  gave  him  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  gruff.  He  seemed  less  fitted  to  the 
city  street  than  the  aisle  of  the  forest.  It  was  in 
his  mountain  home  on  the  forest  edge  that  he 
died  in  1892,  having  suffered  much  physical  pain 
before  his  going.* 

Like  many  another  painter,  Wyant  doubtless 
knew  infinite  regrets  that  he  could  not  live  to 
complete  his  art.  For  he  never  believed  in  his 
having  reached  a  final  goal,  and  was  always 
changing,  experimenting,  trying  to  better  his 
work.  My  first  meeting  with  him  must  have  been 
in  1882.  I  seem  to  remember  him  seated  before 


*"I  met  Wyant  in  187C;  his  right  arm  was  then  practically  useless. 
Later  on  his  right  side  was  affected,  and  the  last  six  years  he  was  com- 
jjelled  to  walk  sideways.  Yet  through  all  these  years  of  suffering  he 
worked  day  and  night,  and  during  the  last  six  years,  when  his  suffering 
was  the  worst,  he  recorded  on  canvas  some  of  the  beautiful  things  that 
survive  him." — {Bruce  Crane,  ibid.) 


56  AMERICAN   PAINTING 

a  picture  with  his  palette  fastened  to  the  easel, 
his  right  arm  hanging  rather  limp,  and  his  left 
hand  holding  a  brush.  There  was  nothing  note- 
worthy about  the  meeting  except  that  his  first 
words  were  a  request  that  I  should  tell  him  what 
was  wrong  with  the  picture  on  the  easel.  He  was 
so  anxious  to  get  a  new  view-point  that  he  was 
quite  willing  to  listen  to  a  stranger,  whether  he 
spoke  with  authority  or  not.  Of  course  I  did  not 
venture  to  say  anything  other  than  in  praise  of 
the  canvas,  though  as  I  now  remember  it  the 
picture  was  bothering  him  and  looked  a  little 
tortured  in  its  surface. 

He  worried  a  good  deal  over  many  of  his  pic- 
tures. When  Inness  came  in  to  see  him  he  re- 
lieved the  strain  in  his  impetuous  way  by  taking 
up  Wyant's  palette  and  brushes  to  add  a  touch 
here  and  there.  The  result  usually  was  that  the 
canvas  grew  into  an  Inness  before  the  acquies- 
cent Wyant's  eyes.  There  was  so  much  of  this 
that  Mrs.  Wyant  finally  forbade  Inness  her 
husband's  studio — at  least  that  is  the  story  told 
by  the  Inness  family.  But  Wyant  would  do  any- 
thing, submit  to  anything,  for  the  love  of  paint- 
ing. Bruce  Crane  writes  me: 

"How  that  man  did  love  to  paint!  I  often 
thought  he  worked  too  hard,  sometimes  failing  to 
get  his  breath  between  canvases.  He  wislied 
always  to  be  alone  so  that  he  could  paint,  paint, 
not  for  praise  nor  emolument;  never  with  the 
thought  of  reward.  I  recall  Z.  visiting  the  studio 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  57 

one  day  and  remarking  that  he,  Z  ,  would  hke 
to  be  considered  the  best  landscape-painter  in 
America.  After  he  left,  Wyant  said:  "What  a 
h —  of  an  ambition  !" 

Loving  the  mountains  and  the  forests  as  he  did, 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  he  would  use  them  in 
art.  It  was  his  earliest  inheritance  and  his  latest 
love.  Any  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  Adiron- 
dacks  or  the  Catskills  will  recognize  in  Wyant's 
landscapes  not  their  topography,  perhaps,  but 
their  characteristics.  The  valleys,  the  side-hills 
with  outcropping  rock,  the  pines,  beeches,  and 
birches,  the  little  streams  and  pools,  the  clear- 
ings with  their  brush-edgings,  are  all  there. 
Wyant  arranged  them  in  his  pictures  with  the 
skill  of  a  Japanese  placing  flowers  in  a  pot.  He 
made  not  so  much  of  a  bouquet  as  an  arabesque 
of  trees  and  foliage,  illuminated  by  sunlight 
filtered  through  thin  clouds  at  the  back  and 
warmed  with  golden-gray  colors.  Atmosphere — 
the  silvery-blue  air  of  the  mountains — held  the 
pattern  together,  lent  it  sentiment,  sometimes 
(with  shadow  masses)  gave  it  mystery. 

Perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  this  in  any 
public  gallery  is  the  "Broad  Silent  Valley"  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum.  It  is  doubtful  if  Wyant 
ever  expressed  himself  better  or  more  com- 
pletely than  in  this  picture.  It  is  a  large  up- 
right canvas,  the  very  shape  of  which  adds  to 
the  dignity  and  loftiness  of  the  composition 
placed  upon  it.  At  the  left  are  half  a  dozen  large 


58  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

trees,  at  the  right  a  rocky  hillside,  in  the  central 
plane  a  reflecting  pool  of  water,  at  the  back  a 
high,  clouded  sky,  radiant  with  the  light  beyond 
it.  Simple  in  materials,  not  brilliant  in  color  but 
rather  sombre  in  tones  of  golden  gray,  devoid 
of  any  classic  or  romantic  interest,  it  is  never- 
theless profoundly  impressive  in  its  fine  senti- 
ment of  light,  air,  and  color.  It  is  as  strong  al- 
most as  a  Rousseau  in  its  foreground  and  trees, 
and  as  charming  as  a  Corot  in  its  light  and  air. 
But  you  cannot  detect  either  Corot  or  Rousseau 
in  it.  When  it  was  painted,  Wyant  was  greatly 
taken  with  those  painters,  but  he  did  not  imitate 
or  follow  them.  His  pictures  were  always  his  own 
— the  "Broad  Silent  Valley"  not  excepted. 

The  beauty  and  charm  of  its  sentiment  with  the 
wonder  of  its  strong  mental  grasp  are  paralleled 
by  the  workmanship  displayed.  Looking  closely 
at  the  canvas,  one  finds  it  not  heavily  loaded, 
but  dragged  broadly  and  laid  flatly  with  pig- 
ment. The  ground  has  been  underbased  in  warm 
browns,  the  shadows  kept  transparent  and  dis- 
tant by  glazes,  the  lights  put  in  with  opaque 
pigments.  The  handling  is  very  broad  if  thin, 
and  there  has  been  little  or  no  kneading  or  emen- 
dation or  fumbling.  It  is  straightforward  flat 
painting  of  a  masterful  kind.  And  this  was  done 
with  that  late-trained  left  hand  ! 

As  for  the  drawing,  it  does  not  bother  with  the 
edges  of  objects,  but  concentrates  force  on  the 
body   and   bulk — the   color   mass.    Wyant   had 


■■Ilroad,  Silciil   \'allr> /■  Ky  AlcNaiidcr  H.  Wyaiit. 

Ill    llir    M,ll,i|„,lil,,,,     \lli-,lll„    nf     \rl. 


alex.a:nder  h.  w\\\xt  59 

learned  linear  drawing  with  the  exactness  of  a 
Durand  and  used  it  in  his  early  pictures,  but 
he  soon  outgrew  the  fancy  for  photographic 
detail.  It  was  not  effective.  And  he  could  give 
the  solidity  of  a  ledge  of  rock  or  the  lightness 
of  a  floating  cloud  much  better  with  a  broader 
brush.  As  he  grew  in  art  his  brush  continued  to 
broaden.  His  work  became  more  sketchy,  his 
brush  freer  and  fuller,  and  possibly  before  he 
died  he  may  have  heard  his  work  referred  to  as 
"impressionistic" — heaven  save  the  word  I 

The  general  public  usually  regards  any  breadth 
of  brush-work  whatever  as  a  sign  of  impression- 
ism. The  term  in  its  present  meaning,  or  lack 
of  meaning,  covers  a  multitude  of  stupidities. 
EverA-  one  who  paints  gives  an  impression  be- 
cause he  cannot  give  anything  else.  Realism  is  a 
misnomer.  The  real  is  nature  itself,  and  art  is 
the  report  about  the  real  made  by  the  painter. 
If  it  is  a  minute  report  of  surface  detail  that  can 
be  seen  through  a  magnifying-glass  the  pubhc 
immediately  dubs  it  realistic:  if  it  is  a  broad 
report  that  ignores  the  surface  detail  for  bulk, 
mass,  and  body,  it  is  called  impressionistic.  But 
the  difference  is  merely  between  the  smallness 
and  the  largeness  of  the  view-point.  The  great 
landscapists  have  usually  regarded  a  tree  as 
more  important  in  its  sb.adow  masses  and  vol- 
ume tb.an  in  its  leave-,  a  ro«.k  as  more  impressive 
in  its  weight  than  its  veir.s  or  stains,  a  bar  of  sun- 
light more  strikin_:  in  its  lu.minositv  than  in  its 


60  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

sharp-cut  edges.  Seeing  and  painting  that  way 
it  is  easy  to  comprehend  how  they  should  be 
set  down  as  impressionists  when  in  a  large  sense 
they  are  making  more  faithful  record  than  the 
men  who  see  only  the  surface  glitter.  Such  men 
were  Corot,  Constable,  Inness,  Wyant,  not  to 
mention  Manet  or  Monet. 

Wyant  probably  came  to  that  point  of  view 
at  first  through  Inness  and  then,  later  on, 
through  Constable,  Corot,  and  Rousseau.  It  was 
the  right  point  of  view,  though  he  never  gave  it 
with  quite  the  breadth  of  Corot  or  with  the 
solid  painting  of  Rousseau.  His  canvases  were 
always  sufficiently  covered  with  pigment,  but 
no  more.  Some  of  his  late  pictures  show  a 
freer  use  of  pigment,  but  he  seldom  if  ever  did 
any  fat  or  unctuous  painting,  and  never  painted 
for  mere  display  of  dexterity.  He  had  certain 
formulas  of  composition,  methods  of  getting  cer- 
tain effects  that  he  employed  continuously. 
For  instance,  he  liked  a  dark  foreground,  a 
lighted  middle  distance,  and  a  veiled  sunlight 
effect  at  the  back.  To  avoid  the  obviousness  of 
this  composition  he  often  introduced  light  spots 
from  a  pool  in  the  dark  foreground  and  dark 
stump's  or  tree  trunks  in  the  light  middle  dis- 
tance, or  otherwise  varied  the  contrast  of  light 
with  dark.  But  these  with  glazed  shadows  and 
opaque  high  lights  were  not  exactly  painter's 
tricks  but  rather  the  conventional  practices  of 
the  studio  at  that  time. 


ALEXANDER  H.  WYANT  61 

Wyant  up  to  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life 
painted  much  out  of  doors  and  directly  from 
the  model.  From  that  he  got  exact  knowledge 
of  forms,  lights,  and  colors,  so  that  in  after- 
years  he  was  able  to  draw  and  paint  largely 
from  visual  memory.  Working  directly  from  the 
model  led  him  into  much  detail,  and  some  of  his 
earlier  pictures  are  burdened  with  a  multitude 
of  facts,  but  when  he  worked  from  memory  in 
the  studio  all  that  was  changed.  He  simplified 
his  composition  to  a  few  large  masses,  threw 
out  detail,  and  depended  for  effect  largely  upon 
light,  air,  and  diffused  color.  A  little  valley  view 
with  half  a  dozen  beeches  at  the  left,  a  clump  of 
bushes  with  a  ledge  of  rock  at  the  right,  a  veiled 
distance — that  was  enough  for  him. 

Occasionally  in  his  pictures  one  sees  a  white 
cottage  in  the  background,  a  road  or  a  bridge; 
but  these  do  not  occur  frequently,  and  I  cannot 
remember  any  picture  by  him  that  shows  man, 
woman,  or  child.  The  human  interest  was  not  his. 
lie  believed  that  nature  was  sufficient  unto  it- 
self and  needed  no  association  with  mankind  to 
make  it  beautiful  or  interesting.  So  long  had  he 
looked  at  nature  and  studied  her  appearances,  so 
long  had  he  marvelled  and  brooded  over  her 
grandeur  and  beauty,  so  long  had  he  loved  the 
veiled  mountain  light,  the  blue  air,  and  the  for- 
est shadow,  that  finally  he  came  to  have  a  way 
of  seeing  things,  a  point  of  view  about  nature 
that  by  its  intensity  and  depth  was  perhaps  ab- 


62  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

normal.  He  saw  not  as  we  see  but  as  an  absorbed 
nature-lover  sees.  The  disturbing  prose  of  facts 
was  no  longer  there.  The  poetry  of  light,  air,  and 
color  alone  remained. 

In  his  first  endeavors  when  he  painted  from  the 
model  he  recited  the  beauty  of  the  facts  and 
perhaps  thought  they  would  be  sufficient  to 
carry  the  picture.  Nature  was  beautiful  in  itself; 
if  faithfully  transcribed  on  canvas  why  would 
not  the  beauty  carry  on  into  the  transcription  ? 
He  found  later  on  that  it  would  not  and  could 
not,  that  the  counterfeit  presentment  remained 
only  a  counterfeit  presentment.  Then  he  be- 
gan to  simplify  his  matter  and  broaden  his 
method,  seeking  not  to  reproduce  the  original 
but  to  give  merely  the  feeling  or  impression  that 
the  original  had  made  upon  him.  The  result  was 
that  peculiarly  poetic  quality  of  light,  air,  and 
color  that  we  associate  with  such  pictures  as  the 
"Broad  Silent  Valley." 

Of  its  kind  no  finer  quality  of  pictorial  poetry 
was  ever  produced  than  is  shown  in  Wyant's 
later  landscapes.  It  is  not  exactly  epic,  though 
it  has  wonderful  descriptive  passages,  sustained 
effect,  and  often  very  positive  strength  of  utter- 
ance. Lyric  is  the  term  that  describes  it  better. 
For  it  is  a  song  rather  than  a  recitation — a  wood 
theme  worthy  of  a  Pan's  piping,  though  it  gives 
no  hint  of  the  Old  \Yorld,  and  belongs  emphati- 
cally in  tills  new  Western  land  with  its  imbroken 
soil  and  vii'gin  forests.  In  aim  and  effect  it  is  not 


ALEXANDER  H.  \VYANT  63 

unlike  the  psean  in  praise  of  light  by  Corot. 
They  were  both  painter-poets — the  one  paint- 
ing on  the  outskirts  of  Paris,  the  other  gathering 
his  material  on  the  outskirts  of  civilization  here 
in  America. 

Inness,  Wyant,  Homer  Martin,  Winslow  Homer 
— no  one  ever  questioned  the  Americanism  of 
their  art.  They  are  our  very  own — the  product  of 
this  new  soil.  Even  their  limitations  recite  our 
history.  As  for  their  aspirations,  with  their  pas- 
sionate love  for  the  beauty  of  our  own  American 
landscape,  may  it  not  be  fairly  claimed  that 
in  these  they  are  representative  of  the  American 
people  ?  In  a  large  sense  have  they  not  been  our 
pictorial  spokesmen,  saying  in  art  what  many  of 
us  have  always  felt  but  could  not  w^ell  express.'^ 

And  Wyant — Wyant  with  the  wood-thrush  note 
— well,  we  shall  not  look  upon  his  like  again ! 
For  he  and  INIartin  were  perhaps  rarer  spirits, 
finer  souls,  than  either  Inness  or  Homer.  Their 
charm  of  mood,  the  serenity  of  their  outlook,  the 
loveliness  of  their  vision  will  hardly  be  repeated 
in  our  art.  They  marked  an  epoch  and  belonged 
to  a  past  that  unfortunately  is  leaving  no  de- 
cided teaching  or  sequence  in  its  wake.  The 
trend  in  art  to-day  is  not  toward  serenity  but 
turbulence. 


IV 
HOMER   MARTIN 


IV 

HOMER   MARTIN 

The  little  aloofness  of  manner  that  prevented 
Wyant  from  being  a  pronounced  social  light  was 
not  a  characteristic  of  Homer  Martin.  From  his 
youth  upward  Martin  was  companionable,  had 
in  fact  something  of  a  genius  for  making  friends. 
All  through  his  life  he  maintained  social  relations 
with  the  wise  and  the  witty  of  his  time,  moved 
in  intellectual  club  circles,  and  both  at  home  and 
abroad  was  accounted  a  man  of  mind,  a  rare 
raconteur  and  conversationalist,  a  most  attrac- 
tive personality.  His  droll  comments  and  quick 
retorts  are  still  told  at  his  club,  and  form  per- 
haps something  of  a  contrast  to  his  pictures 
hanging  upon  the  walls  near  by. 

For  there  was  never  anything  amusing  about 
Martin's  art.  He  indulged  in  no  drollery  of  the 
brush,  and  no  intelligent  person  ever  got  a  smile 
out  of  his  canvases.  They  are  serious,  almost 
solemn,  affairs.  Mrs.  Martin,  in  her  delightful 
reminiscences  of  her  husband,  quotes  John  R. 
Dennett  as  saying  that  "Martin's  landscapes 
look  as  if  no  one  but  God  and  himself  had  ever 
seen  the  places."  There  is,  indeed,  nothing  of 
human  interest  about  them.  A  distant  figure 

67 


68  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

or  a  house  is  occasionally  introduced  as  a  light 
spot  in  a  dark  plane,  or  otherwise  to  help  out  the 
composition;  but  the  figure  always  suggests  a 
wraith  or  a  spook,  and  the  house  is  deserted  or 
haunted.  Says  Mrs.  Martin: 

*' There  is  an  austerity,  a  remoteness,  a  certain 
savagery'  in  even  the  sunniest  and  most  peaceful 
of  his  landscapes,  which  were  also  in  him,  and 
an  instinctive  perception  of  which  had  made 
me  say  to  him  in  the  very  earliest  days  of  our 
acquaintance  that  he  reminded  me  of  Ishmael." 

There  is  no  contradiction  of  character  in  these 
two  phases  of  Martin's  mentality.  They  argue 
merely  versatility.  He  was  exceedingly  fond  of 
the  silent,  even  melancholy,  beauty  of  nature, 
as  he  was  of  the  solemn  seriousness  of  fine  poetry; 
but  these  were  not  themes  for  talk  at  the  club. 
Mrs.  Martin  says  she  never  heard  him  "talk 
shop"  and  that,  with  several  notable  exceptions 
such  as  La  Farge  and  Winslow  Homer,  most  of 
his  close  friends  were  people  in  other  professions 
than  painting.  He  never  tabooed  art  as  a  topic 
of  conversation,  but  he  could  talk  on  other 
themes  quite  as  well.  The  mental  facet  that 
reflected  him  as  a  man  of  the  world  gave  out  a 
different  light  from  that  which  proclaimed  him  a 
poet  in  landscape.  His  was  not  a  one-facet  mind. 

What  part  heredity  played  in  his  equipment 
may  only  be  guessed  at.  His  father  was  a  mild- 
mannered  carpenter  of  New  England  descent, 
his  mother  a  strong-willed,  quick-witted  woman 


HOMER  ^LAHTTN  69 

belonging  to  an  old  Albany  family.  It  is  usually 
assumed  that  Martin  derived  from  his  mother 
and  got  his  artistic  instincts  from  her.  These 
latter,  it  seems,  developed  early — the  mother 
testifying  that  before  he  was  two  years  old  she 
was  accustomed  to  quiet  him  by  giving  him 
pencil  and  paper.  At  five  he  did  what  has  been 
called  a  "spirited"  drawing  of  a  horse.  Doubt- 
less every  one  can  remember  something  of  the 
same  sort  told  about  his  own  infancy.  The 
drawing  habit  is  common  to  almost  all  children 
and  usually  means  little. 

But  Martin  was  to  demonstrate  shortly  that  he 
could  do  nothing  else  but  draw  and  make  pic- 
tures. At  school  in  Albany  (where  he  had  been 
born  in  1836)  he  was  not  a  shining  success.  He 
said  himself  that  his  school-days  had  been  spent 
in  looking  through  the  windows  at  the  Green- 
bush  Hills  and  longing  for  the  time  when  he 
could  get  over  there  and  draw  them.  At  thirteen 
his  schooling  ended,  much  to  his  after  regret. 
He  then  went  into  his  father's  carpenter-shop, 
but  that  proved  as  little  attractive  as  the  school- 
room. A  clerkship  in  a  store  ended  disastrously 
owing  to  his  non-recognition  of  the  amenities  of 
business  life.  Then  he  entered  an  architect':- 
office  and  failed  there  because  of  defective  eye- 
sight. He  could  not  see  or  dra^'  a  vertical  line 
properly.  Later  on  he  v,'as  eliminated  from  the 
Civil  War  draft  because  of  this  same  defective 
\ision.  His  special  fitness  for  the  painter's  craft 


70  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

was  not  very  obvious  at  this  time,  and  yet  he 
was  headed  strongly  that  way. 

It  was  E.  D.  Palmer,  the  sculptor,  who  per- 
suaded the  father  to  allow  Martin  to  go  on  with 
art.  Palmer  was  then  the  art  oracle  of  Albany, 
with  a  little  coterie  of  painters  about  him  con- 
sisting of  such  men  as  James  and  WiUiam  Hart, 
George  H.  Boughton,  Edward  Gay,  Launt 
Thompson.  Martin  knew  them  as  a  boy;  and, 
after  sixteen,  doing  pretty  much  as  he  pleased, 
he  frequented  their  studios,  and  for  two  weeks 
was  a  pupil  of  James  Hart.  That  is  the  only 
direct  instruction  he  ever  received.  Before  he  was 
twenty  he  had  opened  a  studio  of  his  ovm  in 
Albany,  was  quite  well  known  as  a  youthful 
prodigj%  and  was  generally  thought  to  have  in 
him  the  making  of  an  artist. 

It  was  in  Albany  that  he  met  and  married  in 
1861  Elizabeth  Gilbert  Davis,  a  clever  woman 
who  afterward  developed  much  literary  ability 
and  became  well  known  not  only  as  a  reviewer 
in  The  Nation  and  other  periodicals  but  as  a 
novelist  and  magazine  writer.  The  marriage 
was  altogether  fortunate  and  happy,  though  at 
times  pecuniary  difficulties  incident  to  the  artis- 
tic and  literary  life  weighed  heavily  upon  them. 
She  was  a  rod  and  a  staff  to  comfort  him,  and 
there  is  no  record  that  she  ever  flinched  or 
failed  or  regretted  her  choice.  In  their  early  mar- 
ried life  there  were  few  trials,  she  recording  that 
they   were  fairly  prosperous,  that  he  received 


HOSIER  ^L\RTIN  71 

numerous  commissions  for  pictures,  and  that 
they  had  made  many  friends.  They  had  stayed 
on  in  Albany  until  the  winter  of  1862-1863,  and 
then  had  moved  to  New  York.  In  1864  he  had 
a  studio  in  the  Tenth  Street  Building,  and  his 
near  neighbors  were  Sandford  GifiFord,  Hubbard, 
Griswold,  J.  G.  Brown,  McEntee,  Eastman 
Johnson,  and,  later,  John  La  Farge. 

This  was  a  time  of  comparatively  rapid  pro- 
duction with  Martin  and  also  a  time  when  many 
influences  might  be  supposed  at  work  upon  him ; 
but  in  reality  none  of  the  influences  seems  to 
have  made  much  of  an  impression.  His  early 
work  is  now  infrequently  seen,  but  what  there  is 
of  it,  though  small,  bright,  and  a  little  crude, 
is  nevertheless  quite  distinctly  Martinesque. 
He  had,  of  course,  inherited  from  the  Hudson 
River  school  (a  name  that  Professor  Mather 
declares  Martin  originated)  the  "view"  in  land- 
scape. With  the  panorama  had  come  down  the 
studio  method  of  small  detailed  treatment,  and 
]\Iartin  at  first  paid  it  allegiance  but  he  very 
soon  saw  its  defects.  As  a  boy  he  could  speak  of 
a  picture  by  his  master,  James  Hart,  as  "a 
scene  of  niggled  magnitude,"  and  Mr.  Brownell 
tells  me  that  he  had  always  talked  much  of 
"generalization"  in  landscape. 

His  early  pictures  show  tliis  generalization  not 
so  much  perhaps  in  breadth  of  handling  as  in 
breadth  of  view.  He  was  even  then  seeing  tlie 
large  elements   of  eartli,   air,   water,   and   sky. 


73  AI^IERICAN  PAINTING 

Naturally  enough,  his  brush  was  a  httle  fussy 
with  fohage,  dead-tree  trunks,  rock  strata,  and 
foreground  properties  in  general;  but  he  could 
see  the  unity  of  mountain  ranges,  the  con- 
tinuity of  air,  the  omnipresent  radiance  of 
light,  the  great  heave  of  the  sky.  He  already  had 
the  \nsion  but  not,  as  yet,  the  full  means  of  re- 
vealing it.  It  was  practically  the  same  nature 
that  Cole  and  Church  had  seen,  but  they  saw 
it  in  its  surface  aspect,  where  Martin  saw  it  in 
its  depth.  The  difference  between  them  was 
the  wide  difference  that  divides  the  superficial 
from  the  profound. 

With  his  early  pictures  Martin  had  made  con- 
siderable success.  As  far  back  as  1857  he  had 
exhibited  at  the  National  Academy  of  Design; 
in  1868  he  was  elected  an  associate  of  the  Acad- 
emy, and  in  1874  he  was  made  a  full  academi- 
cian. His  landscape  material  at  first  had  been 
gathered  in  the  Berkshires,  then  he  seems  to 
have  tramped  and  sketched  with  Edward  Gay 
in  the  Catskills.  In  the  early  sixties  he  went  to 
the  White  Mountains,  and  from  1864  to  1869 
he  was  every  summer  in  the  Adirondacks.  In 
1871  he  went  to  Duluth,  Minnesota,  at  the  in- 
vitation of  Jay  Cooke,  but  the  next  year  found 
him  in  the  Smoky  Mountains  of  North  Carolina. 
He  was  a  mountain  lover,  almost  exclusively  so, 
at  this  time,  and  apparently  not  quite  happy 
away  from  them. 

Professor  Mather,  who  has  closely  traced  Mar- 


HOMER  MARTIN  73 

tin's  career  in  a  notable  monograph,*  says  that 
his  sketches  in  this  early  period  were  made  with 
a  hard  pencil  on  sheets  of  gray  paper.  They  were 
minutely  done,  drawn  in  outline,  without  color, 
and  with  no  dash  or  smudge  or  mere  sugges- 
tion about  them.  The  pictures  painted  from 
them  in  his  studio  were  perhaps  less  detailed 
than  the  sketches,  and  as  for  their  color,  he  no 
doubt  relied  upon  his  visual  memory  or  his 
instinct  for  tone  and  harmony.  After  1876  he 
began  to  use  charcoal  in  sketching,  and  later  on 
he  took  up  water-colors  and  made  drawings  with 
them  along  the  Saguenay  and  elsewhere.  Doubt- 
less these  later  sketch  mediums  had  come  to 
him  on  his  first  trip  abroad  in  1876. 
The  climax  of  his  early  work — that  is,  before 
1876 — seems  to  have  been  reached  in  such  pic- 
tures as  the  "Lake  Sandford."  It  was  shown  at 
the  Centennial  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia  in 
1876,  but  painted  probably  as  far  back  as  1870. 
The  scene  is  in  the  Adirondacks,  and  Martin 
has  pictured  the  lake  looking  down  from  a 
distant  height.  There  is  a  dark  foreground  of 
outcropping  rock,  then  the  light-reflecting  sur- 
face of  the  long  lake,  then  a  ridge  of  dark  moun- 
tains, and  back  of  that  the  light  sky — four 
Tilanes  in  alternations  of  dark  and  light.  It  is 
woods,  rock,  water,  and  sky — no  more.  The 
largeness  of  Martin's  view,  with  its  grasp  of  such 

*  Homer  Martin:  Poet  in  Landscape,  by  Frank  Jcwett   Mather,  New 
York,  19H. 


74  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

essential  elements  as  light,  air,  and  space,  is  quite 
apparent  notwithstanding  a  handling  that  seems 
too  small  for  it.  There  is  no  petty  puttering  over 
leaves  and  stones,  but  the  small  catches  of 
light-and-dark  in  the  foliage,  the  tree  trunks, 
the  rocks,  the  sharp,  clean-drawn  outlines  con- 
ceal rather  than  reveal  the  conception.  More- 
over, the  smooth,  enamel-like  surface  seems  to 
act  as  a  binder  and  a  restraint.  An  excellent  pic- 
ture, as  many  another  that  he  painted  during 
this  period;  but  Martin  had  not  yet  entirely 
emerged  from  his  early  manner,  was  not  yet 
expressingTiimself  fully  and  freely. 

At  this  time,  no  doubt,  he  had  seen  in  America 
some  works  by  Corot  and  the  Barbizon  men  and 
had  been  impressed  by  them,  but  a  new  period 
was  to  begin  for  him  with  his  first  trip  to  Eu- 
rope. This  was  in  1876.  He  went  to  England, 
where  he  met  and  became  intimate  with  Whistler 
and  Albert  Moore,  then  to  France,  where  he  vis- 
ited Barbizon,  though  Millet  and  Rousseau  were 
dead.  He  also  went  to  St.  Cloud  to  see  Corot's 
sketching-ground,  and  sketched  there  a  bit 
himself.  He  did  not  do  much  painting.  All  of 
his  sojourns  abroad  were  times  of  study  and 
observation.  Mrs.  Martin  says  that  his  working 
periods  were  very  irregular,  that  he  absorbed 
things  by  a  slow  means  rather  than  painted  by 
wilful  effort;  and  he  himself  insisted  that  he 
could  not  paint  without  the  impulse.  Of  course 
all  this  was  set  down  to  him  as  indolence  by  the 


HOMER  M\RTIN  75 

hypercritical,  but  at  the  present  time  it  is  well 
understood  that  mental  preparedness  is  neces- 
sary for  the  production  of  any  great  work,  and 
that  periods  of  long  reflection  are  not  periods  of 
idleness. 

He  returned  to  New  York  in  December  of  the 
same  year  and  took  up  his  painting,  but  he  was 
now  making  some  decided  changes  in  both  his 
matter  and  his  manner.  The  generous  expanse 
of  the  panoramic  view  was  cut  down  to  more 
modest  landscape  proportions.  No  doubt  that 
had  come  to  him  from  seeing  the  paysage  intime 
of  Corot,  Rousseau,  and  Daubigny.  Possibly, 
too,  he  had  been  persuaded  by  the  broad,  sim- 
ple landscapes  of  Georges  Michel,  whose  pictures 
were  then  well  known  not  only  in  Paris  but  in 
New  York.  At  any  rate  it  is  quite  apparent  in 
Martin's  work  after  1876  that  he  was  gradually 
discarding  the  "view"  for  something  smaller 
and  more  intimate.  It  was  still  a  mountain  land- 
scape known  only  to  God  and  himself  and  had 
no  human  appeal,  but  it  expressed  Martin's 
thought  and  feeling  much  better  than  the  earher 
affair. 

Ills  brush,  too,  was  broadening.  It  was  be- 
ginning to  sweep  over  details,  spots,  and 
sparkles,  and  to  emphasize  masses  of  light  or 
dark  or  color.  Exactness  of  statement,  sharpness 
of  line,  emphasis  of  drawing  were  hindrances 
rather  than  helps  to  expression.  Later  on,  no 
doubt,  he  would  have  agreed  in  toto  with  a  re- 


76  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

mark  attributed  by  Charles  Ricketts  to  Puvis 
de  Chavannes:  "Za  perfection  bete  qui  na  rien 
a  faire  avec  le  vrai  dessin,  le  dessin  expressifT'  It 
was  not  until  near  the  end  of  his  career,  when 
his  eyesight  had  nearly  gone,  that  Martin  felt 
himself  free  from  the  restraint  of  method  and 
materials.  He  then  said  to  his  wife  in  reply  to 
some  praise  of  a  picture  on  the  easel:  "I  have 
learned  to  paint  at  last.  If  I  were  quite  blind 
now  and  knew  just  where  the  colors  were  on  my 
palette  I  could  express  myself." 

But  long  before  he  thought  himself  able  to 
paint  he  had  arrived  with  painters  and  paint- 
lovers.  In  1877  he  was  asked  in  at  the  birth  of 
the  Society  of  American  Artists,  and  was  an  ini- 
tial member  of  that  organization.  The  next 
year  he  went  to  Concord  for  Scribners  Monthly* 
to  do  some  illustrations  for  an  article  on  that 
place,  and  in  1881  he  was  sent  to  England  by 
the  Century  Magazine]  to  prepare  some  illustra- 
tions of  George  Eliot's  country.  Martin  did  not 
altogether  like  making  the  illustrations  and 
considered  it  as  only  hack-work.  And  it  seems 
that  the  Century  people  did  not  particularly 
care  for  his  work,  though  just  why  would  be 
hard  to  discover.  To  the  casual  critic  of  to-day 
looking  at  these  drawings  in  the  magazine  they 
seem  excellent,  and,  moreover,  they  are  decidedly 
Martinesque  though  worked  over  by  an  engraver. 

*  Scribners  Monthly,  Fohniary,  1879. 
I  Century  Magazine,  vol.  30,  1885. 


HOMER  AL\RTIN  77 

In  London  once  more,  the  Martins  saw  much  of 
Whistler  and  something  of  such  Hterary  people 
as  Henley  and  the  Gosses.  After  the  illustrations 
were  made  they  crossed  over  to  France.  It  was 
planned  to  return  soon  to  New  York,  but  some 
unexpected  money  arrived  and  they  stayed  on  at 
Villerville  in  Normandy.  There  and  at  Honfleur 
they  remained  until  late  in  1886.  It  was  per- 
haps the  most  enjoyable  period  of  their  lives,  for 
though  they  were  poor  in  purse  they  were  well- 
off  in  friends,  and  W.  J.  Henessey,  Duez,  Rein- 
hart,  the  Forbes-Robertsons,  the  Brownells,  and 
others  came  to  see  them.  Life  in  Normandy  was 
very  attractive — perhaps  too  attractive  for  Mar- 
tin's work,  for  he  seems  to  have  completed  few 
pictures  while  there.  It  was  another  period  of 
absorption  during  which  he  sketched  and  laid 
in  many  pictures  which  were  afterward  finished 
in  America  —  such  pictures  as  "  Low  Tide, 
Villerville,"  ''Honfleur  Light,"  "Criqueboeuf 
Church,"  "Normandy  Trees,"  "Normandy 
Farm,"  "Sun-Worshippers,"  and  the  "View  on 
the  Seine."  He  was  not  a  painter  to  do  a  picture 
at  one  sitting.  He  required  time  and  much  mus- 
ing before  production. 

Back  once  more  in  New  York,  Martin  took  a 
studio  in  Fifty-fifth  Street,  where  he  completed 
many  of  his  Normandy  canvases.  After  1890 
he  had  a  painting-room  in  Fifty-ninth  Street, 
where  he  did  the  "Haunted  House"  and  the 
"Normandy  Trees."  In   189-2  he  made  a  last 


78  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

trip  to  England,  and  spent  some  time  at  Bourne- 
mouth with  George  Chalmers.  Returned  again  to 
America,  he  went  to  St.  Paul  to  join  Mrs.  Mar- 
tin, stopping  on  the  way  at  the  Chicago  Fair, 
where  a  number  of  his  pictures  were  shown.  At 
St.  Paul  his  eyesight  began  failing  to  an  alarming 
degree.  A  famous  oculist  declared  the  optic 
nerve  of  one  eye  dead  and  the  other  eye  clouded 
with  cataract.  But  Martin  now  painted  on  with 
redoubled  energy,  as  though  conscious  that  his 
time  was  short.  He  finished  a  number  of  pic- 
tures and  sent  them  on  to  New  York,  where  he 
had  a  selling  arrangement  with  a  dealer.  But 
alas  !  the  pictures  did  not  sell,  and  shortly  after- 
ward the  painter  laid  aside  his  brushes.  He  was 
fatally  ill  with  a  malignant  growth  in  the  throat, 
and  death  came  to  him  as  something  of  a  relief 
in  1897. 

It  was  in  these  latter  years  only  that  Martin 
said  that  at  last  he  had  learned  how  to 
paint.  Mrs.  Martin  had  been  lauding  a  picture 
called  "The  Adirondacks,"  saying  that  if  he 
never  did  another  stroke  he  would  go  out  in  a 
blaze  of  glory,  and  it  was  his  answer  to  her.  He 
probably  meant  by  the  remark  that  he  had 
arrived  at  a  method  of  handling  that  fully  ex- 
pressed his  thought.  In  reality  it  was  the  same  old 
method,  only  it  had  been  broadened  and  simpli- 
fied. Except  in  his  very  early  works,  Martin  had 
never  been  given  to  excessive  surface  detail. 
He  painted  with  a  comparatively  broad  brush  al- 


HOMER  MARTIN  79 

most  from  the  start — painted  with  a  flat  stroke 
rather  than  with  a  stippHng  point.  The  "White 
Mountain"  picture  in  the  Metropohtan  Mu- 
seum, painted  in  1868,  shows  substantially  the 
same  brush-work  as  the  "Lake  Ontario  Sand 
Dunes"  of  nearly  twenty  years  later.  The  sand- 
dunes  picture  seems  to  have  been  done  largely 
with  a  palette-knife.  Apparently  it  is  trowelled 
across  the  canvas,  with  one  tone  or  color  laid  over 
another,  flattened  down,  compressed,  blended. 
This  applies  especially  to  the  sky;  only  the  dead 
trees  in  the  foreground  are  painted  with  a  brush. 
In  the  "View  on  the  Seine,"  also  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  the  foliage  and  rocks  are 
painted  with  the  brush,  but,  again,  the  sky  and 
water  seem  laid  down  in  layers  of  paint,  put  on 
in  long  bands,  and  flattened  to  a  lacquered  sur- 
face. These  bands  of  color  in  the  sky,  superim- 
posed one  upon  another  like  platings  of  glass  in 
a  La  Farge  window,  appear  again  in  the  "Ilon- 
fleur  Light."  All  the  hues  seem  blended  by  super- 
imposition  to  produce  a  golden  opalescent  glow 
in  the  sky.  Mrs.  Martin  said  he  used  colors  as 
a  poet  does  words,  and  here,  no  doubt,  he  was 
getting  orchestration  in  his  sky  by  fusing  many 
colors  together. 

But  back  of  the  method  was  the  point  of  view 
which  perhaps  unconsciously  begat  the  method. 
IVIartin  always  had  a  fancy  for  the  great, 
the  essential,  elements  of  nature.  And  he  saw 
things  in  their  large  relations,  but  at  first  was 


80  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

bothered  by  their  protrusive  and  petty  facts. 
When  finally  he  came  to  paint  only  what  he 
loved  and  let  the  rest  go,  he  arrived  at  full  ex- 
pression. To  paint  space,  air,  pervasive  light, 
color — to  paint  these  alone — was  to  emphasize 
them,  to  characterize  them  by  isolation,  as 
though  the  painter  should  say:  "I  mean  you  to 
look  only  at  the  things  I  love  and  you  shall  see 
that  they  are  lovable.  Never  mind  the  bright 
autumn  leaf,  the  woodchuck  on  the  rock,  or  the 
open  cottage  door.  Look  at  the  glory  of  light 
coming  through  thin  clouds,  the  great  lift  of 
the  sky,  the  splendid  reflection  of  the  water,  the 
abiding  beauty  of  color  in  the  forests  and  hills." 
It  is  doubtful  that  Martin  had  any  positive 
theory  of  art  which  he  was  trying  to  work  out  in 
practice.  He  probably  painted  instinctively  or 
unconsciously  toward  a  given  goal,  as  most 
painters  do.  That  he  knew  emphasis  could  be 
given  certain  features  of  landscape  by  suppress- 
ing other  features  is  to  say  that  he  knew  the 
old  law  of  dramatic  effect.  But  there  is  a  shade 
of  difference  perhaps  between  negative  sup- 
pression and  positive  assertion.  To  emphasize 
a  certain  ({uality  or  element  by  putting  forward 
its  most  commanding  feature  was  to  characterize 
it  and  make  it  dominant.  And  that,  I  think,  ^.as 
Martin's  aim.  He  knew  mountain  light,  air,  and 
color  as  few  painters  have  known  them ;  he  knew 
tlie  glamour  of  their  poetry  quite  as  well  as  the 
prose  of  their  facts.  From  much  knowledge  and 


HOMER  MARTIN  81 

long  contemplation  he  had  come  to  know  the 
abiding  character  of  mountain  landscape.  And 
when  at  last  he  had  simplified  his  composition 
and  his  handling,  it  seemed  an  easy  matter  for 
him  to  put  the  characterization  upon  canvas. 
His  remark  to  Mrs.  Martin,  "If  I  were  quite 
blind  now  and  knew  just  where  the  colors  were 
on  my  palette  I  could  express  myself,"  was  not 
an  empty  boast. 

This  is  perhaps  reducing  theories  of  painting 
to  a  very  elementary  basis.  The  formula  pre- 
scribes merely  an  omission  of  what  you  do  not 
care  for  and  a  strong  characterization  of  the 
things  you  do  care  for.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
is  that  not  the  process  common  to  most  paint- 
ers .^^  The  Meissoniers  and  Geromes  who  paint 
the  shoe-button  and  the  ej^elash  do  so  because 
they  love  shoe-buttons  and  eyelashes  just  as 
Durand  and  Church  loved  birch  bark  and 
trailing  ivy.  Almost  all  of  our  early  landscapists 
made  no  discrimination  whatever  in  wliat  they 
liked  or  disliked.  A  red  sun  in  the  background 
was  of  no  more  artistic  importance  than  a  red 
September  maple  in  the  foreground.  They  took 
nature  in  its  entirety,  omitting  nothing,  adding 
nothing.  In  result  they  produced  something 
only  a  grade  above  the  colored  photograpli. 
But  Corot,  Inness,  Wyant,  Martin  had  a  more 
intelligent  view-point.  To  them  there  were  cer- 
tain features  of  nature  that  were  characteristic 
in     their     universality    and    permanence,     and 


82  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

other  features  that  were  merely  casual  or  acci- 
dental. The  introduction  of  the  merely  casual 
they  found  did  not  lend  to  the  characterization 
of  the  permanent,  so  they  discarded  it  and  threw 
their  strength  into  that  which  signified  the  most. 

T\Tiat  are  the  significant  and  permanent  fea- 
tures in  landscape  ?  Well,  above  all  is  fight — the 
first  of  created  things,  and  to  this  latest  day  the 
most  beautiful  of  nature's  manifestations.  Corot 
spent  his  life  painting  it  and  even  on  his  death- 
bed was  raving  about  it  in  dehrium.  Xo  wonder 
Martin  was  a  great  admirer  of  Corot,  for  he,  too, 
was  devoted  to  the  splendor  of  light.  In  all  of 
his  later  pictures  it  is  a  leading  feature,  and  the 
eye  is  inevitably  dra\\Ti  at  once  to  this  beauty 
of  the  sky.  He  greatly  disfiked  anything  hke  a 
story  in  his  landscapes  or  any  literary  climax 
dependent  upon  figures  or  houses  or  animals. 
They  would  detract  from  the  tale  of  light  and 
were  discarded.  Nature  was  beautiful  enough 
by  itself  considered.  Xo  wonder  he  chose  the 
uninhabited  mountains  for  his  subjects.  They 
were  not  only  devoid  of  humanity,  but  up  there 
beyond  the  peaks  was  the  most  splendid  mani- 
festation of  the  light  he  loved — the  pure  moun- 
tain light. 

\Miat  are  the  other  abiding  features  of  land- 
scape? Well,  shadow  or  half-light — light  par- 
tially obscured  by  opaque  bodies.  It  could  be 
used  as  a  contrast  and  by  cunning  application 
could   be  made  to  enhance   the  luminosity   of 


HOMER  ]\L\RTIN  83 

full  light.  Moreover,  interior  depth  and  pene- 
tration could  be  obtained  with  it.  Best  of  all, 
its  uncertainty  lent  itself  to  suggestiveness 
and  the  mystery  of  things  half  seen.  Inness 
was  greatly  in  love  with  it.  Many  of  his  late 
canvases  are  called  "vague"  or  sometimes 
"swampy,"  because  they  are  saturated  with 
shadow  masses  out  of  which  loom  or  glow  mys- 
teriously half-seen  forms  and  colors.  Martin 
made  no  such  use  of  it  as  Inness,  though  many 
of  his  foregrounds  are  in  shadow  through  which 
one  looks  to  a  lightened  middle  distance  or  sky. 
He  was  very  fond  of  a  light  broken  by  being 
filtered  through  thin  clouds,  and  he  carried  this 
out  by  employing  a  diffused  thin  shadow  such 
as  obtains  under  broken  light.  It  is  not  often 
that  one  meets  with  dark  shadows  in  his  later 
pictures.  He  seemed  to  shy  at  anything  like 
blackness,  and  in  one  of  his  pictures  now  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum — the  "View  on  the 
Seine" — the  luminosity  is  so  marked  that  the 
picture  has  the  look  of  a  water-color  drawing. 
It  was  not  the  black  and  the  "woolly"  in  Corot 
that  he  loved  but  the  luminous  and  the  radiant. 
Another  omnipresent  and  universal  feature  of 
landscape  is  color.  It  is  an  emanation  of  light, 
is,  in  fact,  no  more  than  its  dispersed  beams. 
If  the  light  is  direct  and  unclouded,  the  color 
will  leap  to  very  high  pitches,  such  as  we  see  in 
the  landscapes  of  Inness  or  the  Algerian  scenes 
of  Delacroix  or  Regnault  or  Fromentin;  if  the 


84  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

light  comes  from  below  the  horizon  and  is  re- 
flected down  to  earth  from  the  upper  sky,  the 
color  will  be  subdued  in  mellow  tones  of  saf- 
fron, rose,  and  grays  such  as  we  see  in  the  dawns 
of  Corot;  if  the  light  comes  from  above  the 
horizon  at  sunset  and  is  filtered  through  filmy 
forms  of  cumulo-stratus  clouds,  the  color  will  be 
delicate  broken  tones  of  gold,  azure,  sad  grays 
such  as  we  see  in  the  "Honfleur  Light"  or  the 
"Criqueboeuf  Church"  of  Martin.  He  revelled 
in  these  subdued  tones  of  broken  light.  They 
were  not  only  the  eternal  coloring  of  nature 
but  they  were  the  means  wherewith  he  ex- 
pressed his  own  sentiment  or  feeling  about 
nature. 

Still  other  and  not  less  universal  features  of 
landscape  to  Martin  were  enveloping  atmosphere 
which  bound  all  things  together  and  made  har- 
mony; space  which  lifted  above  the  reach  of  the 
earth  and  was  limitless;  heave  and  bulge  in  the 
mountain  ranges  with  continuity  in  their  inter- 
blended  lines  and  massive  strength  in  their 
rock  strata;  a  limitless  expanse  to  the  mountain 
forests;  a  splendid  broken  reflection  from  the 
surface  of  river,  pond,  and  pool.  These  features 
ai:)pear  in  such  different  pictures  as  the  "Lake 
Cliamplain,"  the  "Lake  Sandford,"  the  "  Adiron- 
dacks,"  the  "Normandy  Farm,"  the  "Mussel 
Gatherers,"  the  "Haunted  House,"  the  "West- 
chester Hills" — this  last,  perhaps,  the  simplest 
and  the  best  of  all. 

A  final  characteristic  of  nature  may  be  noted 


HOMER  MARTIN  85 

because  Martin  seems  to  have  known  it  well.  It 
appears  in  almost  all  of  his  pictures,  and  is  per- 
haps more  pronounced  with  him  than  with  any 
other  landscape-painter.  I  mean  nature's  great 
serenity.  The  word  has  been  so  carelessly  used  in 
criticism  that  one  has  difficulty  in  enforcing  more 
than  a  careless  meaning  for  it,  and  yet  whatever 
of  serenity  there  may  be  in  fretful  civilization 
or  its  art  is  merely  a  poor  imitation  of  the  eternal 
repose  of  nature  itself.  By  that  I  imply  nothing 
very  profound.  The  mad  plunges  of  Niagara,  the 
explosions  of  Colima  and  Krakatoa,  the  inunda- 
tion of  tidal  waves,  or  the  shakings  of  earth- 
quakes are  mere  accidents  from  which  nature 
straightway  recovers.  The  winds,  the  storms,  the 
great  sea-waves  again  are  only  momentary  inci- 
dents. After  they  have  passed,  nature  once  more 
returns  to  herself.  She  is  ruffled  merely  for  a 
moment  and  then  only  in  a  small  localized  area. 
Her  normal  condition  is  repose — that  immobility 
which  we  associate  with  the  realms  of  space. 

In  the  arts  some  attempt  has  been  made  to  give 
this  quality  of  supreme  restfulness.  The  early 
Egyptians  in  their  colossal  Pharaonic  statues 
attained  a  formal  repose  by  the  bulk  and  weight 
and  hardness  of  the  granite  and  the  calm  atti- 
tude of  the  figure  seated  in  its  great  stone  chair. 
The  Parthenon  as  a  building  and  the  Phidian 
sculptures  of  the  pediment,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  again  have  a  poise  and  style  not 
inaptly  called  restful.  Once  more  in  painting 
serenity  has  often  been  attributed  to  the  land- 


86  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

scapes  of  Claude  and  Corot  and  not  without 
good  reason.  Martin  liked  that  feature  in  both 
these  landscape-painters.  Standing  before  the 
paralleled  and  contrasted  Claude  and  Turner 
in  the  National  Gallery,  he  called  George 
Chalmers's  attention  to  the  serene  dignity  of  the 
Claude  and  the  fussiness  and  labored  work  of  the 
Turner.  But  before  ever  he  saw  Turner  or 
Claude  or  Corot,  he  was  picturing  this  attribute 
of  nature  with  marked  effect.  His  critics  and  ad- 
mirers called  attention  to  the  absence  of  any- 
thing dramatic  in  his  art;  they  noticed  that  his 
landscapes  were  deserted  of  man,  that  they 
were  silent,  forsaken  places  with  a  solemn  still- 
ness about  them.  Nothing  stirred  in  them;  God 
and  Martin  only  had  seen  them.  But  was  not  all 
this  merely  another  way  of  describing  nature's 
eternal  repose  which  Martin  had  grasped  and 
pictured  ? 

There  is  no  stillness  like  that  of  a  deserted 
church  or  a  haunted  house,  and  are  not  all  Mar- 
tin's churches  deserted  and  all  his  houses 
haunted  ?  There  is  no  hush  like  that  of  a  moun- 
tain forest,  and  are  not  all  his  forests  motionless  ? 
There  is  no  rest  like  that  of  a  mountain  lake 
caught  in  a  cup  in  the  hills,  and  are  not  all 
Martin's  lakes  still  waters  that  throw  back  the 
reflection  of  serene  skies  .'^  We  speak  of  his 
poetry,  of  his  sentiment  and  his  feeling  about 
nature,  and  these  he  had  in  abundance,  but  do 
we  always  credit  him  with  a  knowledge  of  na- 


HOMER  MARTIN  87 

ture's  profundities?  Had  he  not  an  intellectual 
grasp  of  the  great  elemental  truths  of  nature, 
and  was  his  art  not  largely  a  calm,  supreme, 
and  splendid  exposition  of  those  truths  to 
mankind  ?  A  seer  and  a  poet  he  was ;  but  also  a 
thinker.  His  long  fallow  periods  when  he  did  not, 
could  not,  paint  were  periods  of  intellectual 
reflection  that  brought  forth  after  their  kind 
an  art  which  was  at  least  unique. 

Martin's  pictures  never  were  very  popular. 
During  his  life  the  great  public  passed  them  by 
and  the  picture-collector  bought  them  only  with 
caution  and  at  very  modest  prices.  It  was  to  be 
supposed  that  after  bravely  living  and  dying 
in  poverty  his  pictures  would  finally  come  into 
the  market  and  sell  at  factitious  prices.  Such  in- 
deed has  been  the  case.  Some  of  them  shortly 
after  his  death  fetched  over  five  thousand  dol- 
lars apiece,  and  to  meet  an  increased  demand 
for  them  the  genial  forger  came  to  the  rescue. 
Spurious  Martins  were  made  and  sold  to  picture- 
collectors  until  finally  the  scandal  of  it  had  an 
airing  in  open  court. 

What  a  commentary  on  an  age  and  a  people 
that  would  appreciate  and  patronize  art !  The 
real  jewel  lying  unnoticed  in  the  dust  for  years 
and  then  a  quarrel  in  court  over  its  paste  imi- 
tation !  Verily  the  annals  of  art  furnish  forth 
strange  reading,  and  not  the  least  remarkable 
page  is  the  story  of  Homer  Martin  and  his 
pictures. 


V 
WINSLOW  HOMER 


WINSLOW  HOMER 

I  NEVER  had  more  than  a  nodding  acquaintance 
with  Winslow  Homer.  Several  times  at  open- 
ing nights  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design 
or  elsewhere,  there  was  a  word  of  greeting  or 
comment  but  no  more.  He  sent  me,  in  1893  or 
thereabouts,  a  signed  copy  of  a  reproduction 
of  his  "Undertow,"  and  letters  were  exchanged 
about  it;  but  nothing  noteworthy  was  in  the 
letters.  My  impression  about  him,  if  I  had  one, 
was  perhaps  not  different  from  that  of  his 
contemporaries.  He  was  always  thought  a  diffi- 
dent, a  taciturn,  even  at  times  a  brusque,  per- 
son— one  who  preferred  his  own  silence  to  any 
one  else's  loquacity.  Chase  once  remarked  that 
he  would  thank  no  one  for  entertainment  be- 
cause he  liked  his  own  art  better  than  any  one's 
society,  but  that  was  mere  scorn  he  was  just 
then  flinging  out  at  a  Plillistine  millionaire. 
The  remark  would  fit  Homer  much  better.  For 
Homer  lived  it  and  Chase  did  not. 

Much  of  Homer's  brusqueness  of  manner  found 
its  way  into  his  art.  There  is  no  grace  or  charm  or 
polish  about  it.  The  manner  of  it  repels  rather 
than  wins  one.  The  cunning,  the  adroit,  the  in- 
sinuating are  hardly  ever  apparent,  but  in  their 

91 


92  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

place  we  have  again  and  again  the  direct,  the 
abrupt,  the  vehement.  He  states  things  without 
prelude  or  apology  in  a  harsh,  almost  savage, 
manner,  and  the  chief  reason  why  we  hsten  to 
him  is  that  he  has  something  to  say.  He  has 
seen  things  in  nature  at  first  hand  and  his  state- 
ment about  them  brings  home  fundamental 
truths  to  us  with  startling  force.  There  is  no 
sentiment  or  feeling  in  or  about  the  report. 
The  man  never  falls  into  a  re  very  as  Martin, 
or  a  mood  as  Wyant,  or  a  passion  as  Inness. 
He  is  merely  a  reporter  and  is  concerned  only 
with  the  truth.  But  it  is  a  very  compelling 
truth  that  he  shows  us. 

He  came  out  of  Boston,  where  in  1836  he  was 
born  of  New  England  parents.  His  father  was  a 
hardware  merchant  and  his  mother  a  Maine 
woman  who  is  said  to  have  had  a  talent  for 
painting  flowers.  The  inference  has  been  that 
the  son  got  his  first  fancy  for  painting  from  his 
mother,  though  one  can  hardly  imagine  any- 
thing farther  removed  from  Homer's  liking  than 
the  ansemic  flower-painting  of  New  England  la- 
dies in  the  1840's.  On  the  other  hand,  his  grand- 
fathers had  been  seafaring  men  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  he  inherited  from  them  that  love 
for  the  sea  that  developed  in  his  later  life.  But 
then  it  is  difficult  to  make  out  that  Homer  de- 
rived anything  from  any  one.  He  seems  to  have 
just  grown  rather  than  developed  from  a  stalk 
or  stock. 


WINSLOW  HOMER  93 

When  he  was  six  his  family  moved  to  Cam- 
bridge; and  thereabouts,  in  the  woods  and 
streams,  he  hunted,  fished,  and  developed  a 
love  for  out-of-door  life  that  never  left  him. 
There,  too,  he  went  to  school  and  put  forth  his 
first  drawings.  There  is  a  drawing  extant,  done 
when  he  was  eleven  years  old,  called  the  "Beetle 
and  the  Wedge"  * — a  drawing  of  boys  at 
play — that  Kenyon  Cox  praises  highly,  say- 
ing that  "the  essential  W^inslow  Homer,  the 
master  of  weight  and  movement,  is  already  here 
by  implication."  It  is  certainly  a  remarkable 
drawing,  for  it  shows  not  only  observation  but 
skill  of  hand  beyond  a  boy  of  eleven.  Moreover, 
one  is  rather  surprised  at  the  economy  of  means 
employed.  It  is  done  easily,  with  a  few  strokes, 
as  though  the  boy-artist  had  unusual  knowledge 
of  form. 

The  father  was  evidently  pleased  with  the 
son's  after-efforts,  for  at  nineteen  the  youth 
was  apprenticed  to  a  Boston  lithographer  by 
the  name  of  Bufford.  He  started  at  work  with- 
out any  lessons  in  drawing  and  was  soon  mak- 
ing designs  for  title-pages  of  sheet-music  and 
working  somewhat  upon  figures.  A  wood-en- 
graver named  Damereau  gave  him  some  hints 
about  drawing  on  the  block,  and  in  the  two 
years  that  he  remained  with  Bufford  he  must 
have  picked  up  much  inforuiation  about  draw- 
ing for  illustration,  for  at  twenty-one  he  had 

*  Published  iu  Dowues,  Life  and  Works  of  Wind-loic  Homer,  Boston,  1911. 


94  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

set  up  a  shop  of  his  own  and  was  making  illus- 
trations for  Ballous  Pictorial,  Harper'' s  Weekly, 
and  other  periodicals. 

The  experience  as  an  illustrator  no  doubt 
taught  him  exact  observation,  precision  in  out- 
line drawing,  conciseness  in  statement,  and  the 
value  of  the  essential  feature.  So  impressive  was 
this  early  education  that  it  remained  with  him 
and  influenced  him  to  the  end.  He  was  always 
an  observer  and  an  illustrator.  One  of  his  can- 
vases left  unfinished  at  his  death,  ''Shooting 
the  Rapids,"  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
is  primarily  an  illustration  of  Adirondack  life. 
It  is  something  more,  to  be  sure,  but  the  point 
to  be  noted  just  here  is  that  the  early  inclina- 
tion was  never  wholly  changed.  He  never  be- 
came subjective,  never  intentionally  put  himself 
into  any  of  his  works.  He  merely  reported  what 
he  saw  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  illustrator. 

He  came  to  New  York  to  live  in  1859  and 
attended  the  night  classes  at  the  Academy  of 
Design.  There  he  no  doubt  improved  his  drawing. 
It  is  said  that  he  also  received  instruction  from 
Rondel,  a  Frenchman,  and  in  the  Paris  Exposi- 
tion of  1890  he  was  catalogued  as  a  "pupil  of 
Rondel";  but  there  must  have  been  some  jest 
behind  it,  for  Homer  received  only  four  lessons 
from  Rondel.  He  was  not  the  man  to  take  les- 
sons from  any  one.  From  the  beginning  he  was 
too  self-reliant,  too  self-centred,  to  be  led  very 
far  afield  by  another's  method  or  opinion. 


WINSLOW  HOMER  95 

In  1860,  while  still  a  very  young  man,  he 
exhibited  at  the  Academy  of  Design  his  picture 
called  "Skating  in  Central  Park."  The  next 
year  he  went  to  Washington  to  prepare  draw- 
ings for  Lincoln's  inauguration;  and  the  year  fol- 
lowing he  was  the  special  war-artist  of  Harper's 
Weekly  with  McClellan  in  the  Peninsular  Cam- 
paign. His  first  war-picture  done  in  oils  is  said 
to  be  a  "Sharp-Shooter  on  Picket  Duty."  It 
was  soon  followed  by  "Rations,"  "Home, 
Sweet  Home,"  and  "The  Lost  Goose" — two 
of  them  shown  at  the  Academy  of  Design  in 
1863.  The  next  year  he  sent  "The  Briarwood 
Pipe"  and  "In  Front  of  the  Guard  House." 
In  1865  he  was  made  an  academician  for  his 
picture  called  "The  Bright  Side,"  and  shortly 
afterward  his  very  popular  painting  "Prisoners 
from  the  Front"  was  shown. 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  about  any  of 
these  works.  "The  Bright  Side,"  which  won 
Homer  the  title  of  N.A.,  shows  some  negro 
soldiers  sprawling  on  the  sunny  side  of  an  army 
tent.  Like  "Rations"  and  "Prisoners  from  the 
Front,"  it  is  just  a  passable  illustration  that  if 
made  to-day  would  run  small  risk  of  applause. 
We  wonder  over  the  achievement  of  Homer's 
later  years,  but  one  is  not  sure  that  the  lack  of 
achievement  in  his  earlier  years  is  not  the  more 
surprising.  How  could  he  do  such  commonplace 
little  pictures !  Occasionally  something  like 
"Snap    the   Whip,"    which    has   large   drawing 


96  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

comes  in  to  break  the  monotony;  but  the  dull 
trend  is  soon  resumed.  His  audiences  and  edi- 
tors must  have  been  decidedly  uncritical  or  else 
extremely  good-natured. 

And  at  this  time  Homer  had  practically  finished 
with  his  apprenticeship  to  art.  He  was  thirty 
years  old  and  had  already  developed  aloofness, 
not  to  say  taciturnity.  He  kept  much  by  him- 
self, would  not  look  at  other  people's  pictures 
or  discuss  them,  would  not  take  advice  from 
any  one.  This  was  not  because  his  head  had 
been  turned  by  his  popularity;  but  possibly 
because  he  thought  he  could  work  out  better 
results  alone  than  with  the  aid  of  others.  In  spite 
of  a  little  noisy  success,  he  must  have  known  that 
his  paintings  up  to  this  time  were  of  small  im- 
portance. They  were  hard  in  drawing,  brick-like 
in  color,  cramped  in  handling.  Their  illustrative 
quality  and  the  fact  that  Homer  did  them  are 
the  only  interesting  things  about  them  to-day. 

In  1867  he  w^ent  to  France  and  spent  ten 
months  in  Paris,  but  what  he  did  there  can  only 
be  guessed  at.  He  evidently  attended  no  schools, 
haunted  no  galleries,  made  no  friends  among 
painters.  He  did  some  drawings  of  people  copy- 
ing in  the  Louvre  and  dancing  in  the  Students 
Quarter — that  is  about  all.  The  inclination  of  the 
illustrator  was  with  him  rather  than  the  prying 
instincts  of  an  art  student.  What  cared  he  about 
Titian's  nobles  or  Watteau's  gallants  or  Char- 
din's  cooks !  They  v.^ere  not  themes  for  him  to 


WINSLOW  HOMER  97 

conjure  with.  What  to  him  was  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux  Arts  or  the  atelier  of  Couture  !  He  was  well 
past  the  student  age.  He  might  have  thought 
highly  of  the  works  of  Millet  or  Courbet  had  he 
studied  them,  but  there  is  no  hint  in  his  work 
that  he  had  even  seen  them,  though  John  La 
Farge  said  that  Homer  was  largely  made  by 
studying  the  lithographs  of  the  men  of  1830. 

He  came  back  to  America  and  continued 
painting  American  subjects  in  his  own  hard, 
dry,  and  hot  manner.  He  did  some  shore  themes 
at  Gloucester  showing  a  first  interest  in  the 
sea,  some  pictures  of  girls  picking  berries  or 
grouped  in  a  country  store,  some  sketches  of 
boys  swimming,  and  men  in  the  hay-fields — all 
of  them  showing  an  interest  in  country  life. 
But  none  of  them  was  in  any  way  remarkable. 
His  "Sand  Swallow  Colony,"  with  boys  robbing 
the  nests  under  the  bank's  edge,  is  the  best 
type  of  his  illustrations  done  at  this  time.  It 
appeared  in  Harper's  Weekly^  served  its  pur- 
pose, and  went  its  way  without  making  any  per- 
ceptible impression  upon  American  art. 

In  1874  Homer  made  a  first  trip  to  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  as  though  searching  new  magazine  ma- 
terial. He  found  it  in  the  Adirondack  guides  and 
in  hunting-scenes.  In  187G  he  went  to  Virginia, 
once  more  looking  for  painter's  "copy,"  and  find- 
ing it  in  the  American  negro.  Such  pictures 
as  "The  Carnival"  and  a  "Visit  from  the  Old 
Mistress"  were  the  result.  It  was  a  genre  inter- 


98  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

esting  only  In  theme,  for  Homer's  workmanship 
was  still  without  any  great  merit  or  impressive- 
ness.  He  flung  back  to  the  American  farmer  for 
a  subject,  and  then  once  more  went  to  Gloucester 
to  do  schooners  and  ships.  In  1873,  while  stay- 
ing on  Ten  Point  Island,  in  Gloucester  Harbor, 
he  had  drawn  some  water-colors  notable  for 
their  high  light  and  their  absence  of  shadow. 
They  seemed  to  have  some  purely  pictorial 
quality  about  them,  but  the  illustrative  motive 
was  still  behind  them.  He  did  not  give  up 
work  for  Harper's  Weekly  until  1875,  and  it 
was  1880  before  he  finally  abandoned  all  work 
for  reproduction. 

Up  to  this  time  Homer  had  not  painted  a  single 
epoch-making  picture.  As  Kenyon  Cox  quite 
truly  says,  had  he  died  at  forty  he  would  have 
been  unknown  to  fame.  One  might  draw  out  the 
number  of  years  and  make  them  fifty  without 
extravagance  of  statement.  Indeed,  it  was  not 
until  he  was  sixty  that  he  began  to  paint  his 
pictures  of  barren  coast  and  sea  upon  which  his 
enduring  fame  must  rest,  though  before  that  he 
had  given  indication  in  many  pictures  of  fisher- 
folk,  whither  he  was  trending.  The  blood  of  his 
sailor  ancestors  was  coming  to  the  fore  at  last, 
and  the  sea  was  to  be  his  main  theme  thereafter. 
If  we  believe  in  genius  that  is  born  rather  than 
made,  then  that,  too,  began  to  crop  out  in  his 
later  life. 

He  went  to  Tynemouth,  England,  in  1881,  and 


WINSLOW  HOMER  99 

stayed  there  for  two  years  in  close  contact  with 
the  fisher  people  of  the  coa^i.  This  produced  a 
decided  change  in  his  ayitfxhe  large,  robust  type 
of  English  fisher  lass,  the  strongly  built  sailor 
in  oilskins,  appealed  to  him  and  remained  with 
him.  They  were  rugged,  forceful  people  that 
well  met  his  hard  drawing  and  severe  brush. 
There,  too,  he  began  picturing  the  gray  sky 
and  mist  and  sea  of  England.  The  heavy  at- 
mosphere that  hangs  like  a  pall  upon  the  North 
Sea  in  stormy  weather  caught  his  fancy,  and  the 
gray-blue,  gray-green  waters  gave  him  a  new 
idea  of  color.  The  old  airless,  brick-colored  pic- 
ture of  his  early  days  was  never  taken  up  again. 
He  dropped  readily  into  cool  grays,  which  in 
themselves  were  perhaps  no  nearer  a  fine  color- 
harmony  than  his  earlier  hot  colors,  but  at  the 
least  they  were  neutral  and  they  were  em- 
phatically true  of  the  sea  in  its  stormy  phases. 

Even  Homer's  rigid  method  of  painting  began 
to  break  a  little  at  Tynemouth.  He  was  working 
then  in  water-colors,  and  perhaps  the  lighter 
medium  lent  itself  more  readily  to  a  freer 
handling.  His  brush  loosened,  his  drawing  seemed 
less  angular,  less  emphasized  in  outline,  and  his 
composition  became  more  a  matter  of  selection 
and  adjustment  than  of  mere  accidental  ap- 
pearance. 

Mr.  Cox,  whose  excellent  monograph  on  Homer 
I  am  glad  to  quote,*  thinks  that  Homer  quite 

*  U'iiixlow  Ilomcr  :  An  Appreciation,  by  Keuyou  Cox,  New  York,  IDl  1. 


100  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

found  himself  at  Tynemouth,  and  points  out 
in  the  "Voice  from  the  CHff"  his  "rhythm  of 
Hue"  whereby  he  holds  the  three  figures  together; 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  Homer  did  not  get  a 
suggestion  of  that  rhythm  of  line  up  in  London 
town  on  his  perhaps  occasional  visits  there.  A 
hint  of  the  types  of  the  fisher  girls,  the  repeated 
lines  of  the  arms  and  dresses,  with  the  strength 
gotten  from  the  repetition,  I  seem  to  remem- 
ber in  Leighton's  picture  called  the  "  Summer 
Moon.'  Albert  Moore,  too,  was  turning  out 
rhythmical  repetitions  at  that  time  and  using 
models  that  remind  us  somewhat  of  those  used 
by  Homer,  though,  of  course,  slighter  and  more 
fanciful.  The  fisher  girls  in  the  "Voice  from  the 
Cliff"  and  the  "Three  Girls"  are  a  little  too 
pretty  to  be  wholly  original  with  Homer,  and  yet 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  such  water-colors 
as  "Mending  the  Nets"  and  "Watching  the 
Tempest"  give  warning  of  the  coming  man.  The 
two  women  seated  on  a  bench  in  the  "Mending 
the  Nets"  are  young-faced,  large-boned,  big- 
bodied  types  that  have  a  sculpturesque  quality 
about  them;  and  the  "Watching  the  Tempest" 
throws  out  a  suggestion  of  the  Homeric  sea  that 
is  to  be. 

It  was  in  1884  that  Homer  finally  went  to 
Front's  Neck,  near  Scarborough,  where  he 
built  a  cottage  on  the  shore  and  lived  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  quite  alone,  practically  shut  out 
from  art  and  artists,  a  recluse  and  a  hermit  yet 


WINSLOW  HOMER  101 

within  gunshot  of  a  crowd.  He  lived  there 
much  as  Thoreau  at  Walden  Pond,  cooking  his 
own  meals,  doing  his  own  gardening,  raising  his 
own  tobacco,  and  rolling  his  own  cigars.  The  city 
had  never  been  attractive  to  him,  and  from  first 
to  last  he  preferred  picturing  the  open  spaces 
rather  than  streets  and  houses. 

It  was  from  the  isolation  of  Front's  Neck  that 
he  began  sending  forth  the  pictures  that  made 
him  famous.  One  of  the  earliest  was  the  "Life 
Line"  of  1884.  It  is  a  most  dramatic  illustration 
of  a  rescue  at  sea — a  girl  being  brought  ashore 
by  a  life-saving-station  man.  The  two  are  swung 
in  a  buoy  from  the  taut  life-line  and  are  being 
windlassed  through  the  great  waves.  The  girl  is 
unconscious,  and,  lying  helpless,  catches  the  eye 
and  the  sympathy  at  once.  That  our  interest  in 
her  might  be  all-absorbing,  the  painter  has  hid- 
den the  man's  face  by  a  woollen  muffler  blown 
out  by  the  wind. 

Now  the  "Life  Line"  is  very  forceful  story- 
telling with  the  brush,  but  let  it  not  be  over- 
looked that  it  is  story-telling — illustration.  The 
illustrator,  with  an  eye  for  the  critical  moment 
and  the  appealing  interest,  is  just  as  apparent 
here  as  in  "Snap  the  Whip"  or  "Prisoners  from 
the  Front."  Winslow  Homer,  the  pictorial  re- 
porter, is  still  present.  All  along  he  has  been 
answering  the  question:  "What  docs  it  mean?" 
lie  is  still  interested  in  that,  but  he  is  now  be- 
ginning  to   think   about   the   artist's   question: 


102  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

"How  does  it  look  ?  "  He  is  just  a  little  concerned 
about  his  form  and  his  color,  his  composition, 
and  his  general  pictorial  effect.  They  are  not 
what  they  should  be.  The  wet,  clinging  gar- 
ments of  the  girl  reveal  a  large  and  very  hard 
figure.  It  is  rigid  in  its  outlines  and  stony  in  its 
texture,  as  though  reinforced  for  purposes  of 
mechanical  reproduction.  The  man  is  little  more 
than  so  much  tackle  and  line,  so  ropelike  is  his 
treatment,  and  the  enormous  hollow  of  the  sea 
is  merely  a  perilous  background.  As  for  color, 
the  picture  is  gray  and  would  lose  none  of  its 
fetching  quality  if  done  in  black-and-white. 
There  is  no  love  for  color  as  color  nor  for  paint- 
ing as  painting  here.  The  handling  was  evidently 
as  little  pleasure  to  the  painter  as  it  is  to  us. 
It  is  as  flat,  as  monotonous,  and  as  negative  as 
the  plaster  on  a  kitchen  wall.  There  is  no 
suspicion  of  subtlety,  facility,  or  suavity  in  it. 
But  when  all  that  is  said,  there  is  a  large  some- 
thing left  behind  unaccounted  for — a  grip  and 
knowledge  and  point  of  view — that  we  respect 
and  admire. 

A  second  dramatic  and  harrowing  picture 
finished  at  Front's  Neck  w^as  "Undertow." 
It  is  a  rescue  of  two  girl  bathers  by  life-savers, 
something  that  the  painter  had  seen  in  the 
surf  at  Atlantic  City.  It  appealed  to  him. 
Why  ?  Because  it  was  beautiful  in  itself  ?  Hardly 
that;  but  because  it  had  great  illustrative  pos- 
sibilities.   There    once    more    was    the    critical 


WINSLOW  HOMER  103 

moment  and  the  appealing  interest.  He  could 
not  resist  such  "copy"  as  that.  But  now  in  put- 
ting the  picture  together  he  is  something  more 
than  a  reporter  of  the  fact.  He  embellishes  the 
fact  to  make  it  not  only  more  effective  but  more 
attractive.  He  places  the  figures  on  the  canvas 
in  a  diagonal  line  that  echoes  the  diagonal  of 
the  incoming  wave  at  the  back.  The  lines  give 
a  swing  and  surge  forward  not  only  to  the  sea 
but  to  the  figures.  The  four  figures  are  locked  in 
a  long  chain — almost  a  death-grip — with  clutch- 
ing hands  and  arms  and  much  use  of  angle 
lines.  The  angle  lines  repeat  one  another,  inter- 
lock, and  run  on  until  the  whole  group  is  of  a 
piece — moves  as  a  piece.  All  this,  of  course, 
helps  on  the  literary  but  it  also  indicates  a 
growing  sense  of  the  pictorial.  The  four  figures 
begin  to  have  the  monumental  quality  of  a 
Greek  pedimental  group.  The  very  sharpness  of 
their  drawing  and  the  hardness  of  their  texture 
seem  to  help  out  the  plastic  feeling.  Homer 
seems  rising  to  the  difference  between  the  merely 
illustrative  and  the  picturesque  in  design;  but 
his  color  sense  stirs  only  sluggishly.  The  "Un- 
dertow" is  pitched  in  neutral  grays  and  greens, 
and  one  cannot  rave  over  it. 

At  this  time  the  painter  was  spending  his 
winter  months  not  on  the  Maine  coast  but  down 
in  the  Bahamas  or  Cuba  or  Bermuda.  While  in 
those  places  he  did  a  great  many  water-colors — ■ 
ghmpses  of  palm  and  sand  and  sea  with  white 


104  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

houses  glaring  in  the  sun.  They  were  done  with 
much  freedom,  with  a  sense  of  bhnding  Hght, 
and  some  reahzation  of  color.  The  quality  of 
mere  "copy"  drops  out  of  them,  or  perhaps  was 
never  in  them.  They  seem  scraps  of  pictures, 
delightful  glimpses  of  such  pictorial  features  as 
sun  and  shade  and  bright  hues.  It  looks  from 
them  as  though  Homer  would  finally  emerge  as 
a  great  painter  and  forget  his  early  point  of 
view.  And  at  times  he  does.  But  he  has  lapses, 
and  the  bias  of  his  early  days  returns  to  him. 

From  his  Southern  trips  came  the  material  for 
"The  Gulf  Stream"  done  about  1886.  Once 
more  the  painter  has  grasped  the  psycholog- 
ical moment.  A  shipwrecked,  starving  negro  is 
lying  on  the  deck  of  a  dismasted  schooner  drift- 
ing in  the  Gulf  Stream.  In  the  shadowed  water 
of  the  foreground  sharks  are  playing,  beyond 
the  boat  are  whitecaps  and  running  seas,  in 
the  distance  is  the  suggestion  of  a  waterspout 
under  a  blue-gray  sky.  There  is  quite  a  display 
of  color.  It  is  in  the  sea  and  sky,  but  its  breadth 
is  somewhat  disturbed  by  being  flecked  with 
white  in  patches.  The  picture  is  spotty  in  the 
foam  and  the  clouds,  and  does  not  sum  up  as  a 
complete  harmony.  It  seems  as  though  color 
were  not  an  integral  part  of  it  but  something 
brought  in  as  an  afterthought — color  added  to 
design  rather  than  design  in  color. 

This  is  not  the  case,  however,  with  the  very 
beautiful   "Herring   Net,"   done   at   about   the 


K  J 


WINSLOW  HOMER  105 

same  time.  It  is  another  open-sea  piece  with 
fishermen  drawing  into  a  boat  a  net  full  of 
wriggling  fish  caught  in  the  meshes.  Herring,  as 
they  come  out  of  the  water,  are  brilliant  in  iri- 
descent hues,  and  no  doubt  that  in  itself  ap- 
pealed to  Homer  and  was  the  reason  for  the 
picture's  existence.  The  color  at  once  became 
the  illustrative  motive — became  the  picture. 
There  is  no  feeling  now  of  color  as  an  after- 
thought or  as  playing  second  part  to  the  men 
or  the  sea.  The  eye  goes  to  the  glittering  herring 
at  once.  You  comprehend  at  a  glance  that  this 
is  a  color  scheme  per  se,  and  that  the  gray  men 
and  the  gray  sea  are  only  a  ground  upon  which 
the  iridescent  hues  appear.  Whether  Homer 
realized  how  beautiful  the  color  was,  whether 
he  had  any  emotional  feeling  about  it,  or  saw  any 
fine  pictorial  poetry  in  it,  who  shall  say  ?  In  life 
he  was  disposed  to  deny  such  things.  He  said 
to  John  W.  Beatty:  ''When  I  have  selected  a 
thing  carefully,  I  paint  it  exactly  as  it  appears." 
Was  that  his  procedure  with  the  "Herring  Net"  ? 
Was  it  merely  a  color  report  of  what  he  had 
seen  ?  If  so,  he  never  saw  anything  so  beautiful 
again.  It  is  his  high-water  mark  as  a  colorist. 

Homer  was  now  producing  his  best-known 
pictures  of  fishermen,  sailors,  and  sea,  such  as 
the  "Fog  Warning"  and  "Eight  Bells."  A  lit- 
erary half-ilUistrative  quality  marks  them,  but 
perliaps  we  sliould  not  feel  this  did  we  not  know 
the  painter  had  served  time  at  that  side  of  art. 


106  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

They  can  stand  as  great  pictures  all  by  them- 
selves, simply  because  they  are  powerful  charac- 
terizations of  the  sea.  They  have  a  driving 
truth  about  them  that  sweeps  away  any  de- 
murrer on  account  of  their  method.  And  in 
them  all  there  is  indication  and  suggestion  of 
an  expanding  pictorial  sense.  It  came  late,  for 
Homer  was  fifty.  It  was  never  to  become  a  com- 
plete expansion,  it  was  always  more  of  a  sug- 
gestion than  a  realization;  but  it  was  a  welcome 
addition  and  showed  the  painter's  active  and 
receptive  mind. 

While  in  Cuba  Homer  got  the  material  for  his 
"Searchlight,  Santiago  Harbor,"  which  he  put 
in  picture  form  about  1899.  There  is  a  great 
dark  gun  in  the  foreground — the  dramatic 
catch-point,  again — with  a  suggestion  of  a 
mason-work  fort  around  it.  A  search-light  flares 
up  the  sky;  the  sky  itself  is  a  gray-blue  night 
effect.  The  arrangement  is  large,  big  in  simplic- 
ity of  masses.  The  color  is  the  usual  gray -blue, 
but  there  is  a  fine  note  about  it,  with  a  light 
and  an  air  that  would  count  for  little  in  repro- 
duction but  are  very  effective  in  the  picture 
itself.  The  canvas  comes  precious  near  being  a 
great  affair  of  form,  light,  and  air.  It  is  as  sharp 
in  drawing  and  as  flat  and  dull  in  its  surface 
painting  as  his  other  works.  The  naive  simplicity 
of  the  brush-work  is  astonishing.  Homer  knows 
no  tricks  of  handling,  and  will  resort  to  no 
glazes,  scumbles,  or  stipples.  He  makes  his  state- 
ment so  unadorned  that  it  seems  almost  crude  or 


WINSLOW  HOMER  107 

immature.  And  yet  with  these  shortcomings  we 
still  have  an  unusual  quality  of  light,  a  rare 
night  sky,  and  a  suggestion,  at  least,  of  fine 
color. 

If  the  artistic  sense  seemed  to  be  growing 
with  Homer  in  his  late  years,  the  early  illustra- 
tive sense  was  not  exactly  dead  or  dying.  From 
first  to  last  he  knew  how  to  characterize  things — 
to  catch  and  give  the  salient  features  with 
force.  Nothing  he  ever  did  shows  this  better 
than  his  "Fox  and  Crows,"  now  in  the  Penn- 
sylvania Academy.  A  red  fox  is  trailing  through 
soft,  deep  snow  and  some  crows  are  hawking 
and  dipping  at  him,  as  is  their  wont.  Off  in  the 
distance  is  a  glimpse  of  the  sea  under  a  gray 
sky.  It  is  composition,  characterization,  and 
illustration  all  in  one.  Nothing  could  be  more 
original  or  more  truthful.  From  this  picture 
alone  one  might  think  Homer  an  experienced 
animal  painter,  but  it  happens  to  be  his  one  and 
only  animal  picture.  It  is  practically  an  arrange- 
ment in  black-and-white,  well  massed  and  ef- 
fectively placed  on  the  canvas.  The  blacks  of 
the  near  crows  are  repeated  in  the  far  crows  and 
in  the  ears  and  forcpaws  of  the  fox;  the  white 
of  the  snow  is  repeated  in  the  sea  and  sky;  the 
gray  half-tones  are  echoed  in  the  fox  and  rocks 
and  clouds.  It  is  not  only  an  excellent  design 
fully  wrought  but  the  effect  of  the  skill  is  ap- 
parent in  the  convincing  truth  of  fox  and  snow 
and  winter  shore. 

Finally    came    a    scries    of   pictures    in    which 


108  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

bird  and  beast  and  man  are  left  out  and  only 
the  great  sea  and  its  fearsome  fret  on  the  shore 
remain.  "Cannon  Rock,'*  done  about  1895, 
shows  a  section  of  rocky  coast  with  blue-green 
waves  pushing  in  and  curling  in  white  crests. 
In  the  "Northeaster"  a  green-and-white  wave 
is  breaking  over  a  rock  and  the  spray  and  foam 
are  flung  high  in  air.  The  "Maine  Coast"  is  a 
wild  day  along  shore  with  rain  and  mist  and 
spindrift  and  flying  scud  in  the  air;  there  is 
blue-gray  sky  and  sea,  and  far  out  the  huge 
waves  are  lifting  and  rolling  shoreward  with 
irresistible  force.  On  the  rocky  coast  the  foam- 
ing crests  are  falling  amid  split  and  shattered 
rock  strata.  "High  Cliff"  and  the  "Great  Gale" 
are  variations  of  the  same  theme. 

Of  course  these  pictures  are  illustrative  in  a 
way  of  the  Maine  coast,  but  one  does  not 
think  of  them  as  such  but  rather  as  descriptive 
or  creative.  They  are  reports  of  the  power  of  the 
sea,  wonderful  view-points  of  a  great  element. 
In  that  sense  they  are  epic,  tremendous  charac- 
terizations, all-powerful  statements  that  startle 
and  command.  You  cannot  get  away  from  them. 
They  fascinate,  and  yet  are  not  attractive  in 
the  sense  that  you  would  like  to  have  one  of 
them  in  your  drawing-room.  They  are  elemental 
rather  than  ornamental.  As  Kenyon  Cox  well 
puts  it,  you  might  as  well  let  the  sea  itself  into 
your  house  as  one  of  Homer's  sea-pictures. 
The  picture  would  sweep  everything  before  it, 


WINSLOW  HOMER  109 

put  everything  else  out  of  key,  make  a  black 
spot  on  the  wall,  and  continually  irritate  you 
with  its  harshness  of  method.  From  his  youth 
upward  Homer  seems  to  have  had  a  scorn  for 
the  decorative.  Charm  either  in  his  personality 
or  his  art  seems  to  have  been  a  gift  withheld 
by  the  fairy  godmother.  He  had  the  giant's 
strength  and  with  it  he  had  to  accept  the  limita- 
tions of  that  endowment.  The  gentler  side  of 
the  sea — the  flat  summer  plains  of  glorious 
color  and  light — he  did  not  care  for,  and  even 
such  features  of  the  stormy  sea  as  the  flashing, 
foaming  crests  he  could  not  do  except  in  hard, 
immovable  form.  The  crests  in  the  "Woods 
Island  Light"  look  like  inlays  of  white  marble 
on  lapis  lazuli.  The  bubbling  surge  full  of  color 
and  evanescent  as  champagne  was  too  charming, 
too  lovely  for  him. 
There  were  returns  to  the  illustrative  during 
his  later  years  in  such  pictures  as  "The  Wreck," 
"Kissing  the  Moon,"  and  in  Adirondack  scenes, 
but  by  1900  he  had  reached  his  apogee  and  there- 
after changed  little.  He  was  not  to  break  out  any 
new  sails.  Nor  was  there  need  of  it.  His  great 
ability  and  originality  had  been  abundantly 
displayed  and  universally  recognized  by  both 
painter  and  public.  Honors,  enough  and  to 
spare,  were  his.  In  1893,  at  Chicago,  he  had  been 
awarded  the  gold  medal,  and  everything  that 
art  societies  could  do  or  artists  and  critics  could 
say   had   been   done   and   said.   Up   at   Front's 


no  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Neck,  where  he  had  shut  the  door  after  him 
and  kept  it  closed  for  so  many  years,  these 
echoes  of  the  world's  recognition  were  received 
with  indifference.  Miss  Mechlin  quotes  from  a 
letter  of  his  in  1907: 

"Perhaps  you  think  I  am  still  painting  and 
interested  in  art.  That  is  a  mistake.  I  care 
nothing  for  art.  I  no  longer  paint.  I  do  not  wish 
to  see  my  name  in  print  again." 

He  wrote  that  perhaps  on  one  of  his  bad  days, 
for  he  did  take  up  the  brush  again,  but  with  no 
great  spirit  or  effectiveness.  In  1908  he  was 
seriously  ill  and  quite  helpless,  but  he  insisted 
upon  living  on  in  his  lonely  house  with  entrance 
forbidden  to  all  but  his  brother's  family.  And 
there  quite  by  himself  he  died  in  September, 
1910.  He  had  lived  a  strange  life,  produced  a 
strong  art,  and  then  died,  like  a  wolf,  in  silence. 

One  often  wonders  regarding  such  a  character 
as  Winslow  Homer  what  would  have  been  the 
result  if  the  strange  in  both  his  life  and  his  art 
had  been  eliminated.  Would  it  have  helped  mat- 
ters or  would  his  strength  have  been  dissipated 
thereby?  And  wherein  lay  the  strangeness  of 
Homer  if  not  that  he  never  inherited  a  single 
social  or  artistic  tradition  nor  would  adopt  one 
in  later  life  ?  He  made  his  own  manners  and  his 
own  methods,  in  life  as  in  art,  with  the  result 
that  in  both  he  was  always  a  rough  diamond. 
He  never  received  anything  of  importance  by 
teaching  or  training.  Culture  of  mind  and  hand, 
emotional  feeling  or  romance,  were  practically 


WINSLOW  HOMER  111 

unknown  to  him.  He  was  as  far  removed  from 
romanticism  as  classicism,  and  cared  nothing 
about  any  of  the  isms  of  art.  We  keep  flinging 
back  to  an  early  conclusion  that  he  was  a  won- 
derful reporter  rather  than  an  interpreter,  a 
reporter  who  saw  unusual  things  in  the  first 
place  and  reported  them  with  unusual  charac- 
terization in  the  second  place.  The  result  was 
about  the  largest  nature  truths  of  our  day. 
Truth  was  his  avowed  aim — the  plain  unvar- 
nished truth.  He  never  intentionally  departed 
from  it. 

Homer  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  what  a 
man  cannot  do  entirely  by  himself.  With  his 
initial  force  and  his  keen  vision  he  could  make  a 
very  powerful  report.  Had  he  been  educated, 
taught  restraint  and  method,  given  a  sense  of 
style,  schooled  in  decorative  value,  he  might 
have  risen  to  the  great  gods  of  art.  But  per- 
haps not.  Even  pedagogues,  in  their  late  years, 
begin  to  doubt  the  worth  of  training.  It  might 
have  ruined  Winslow  Homer.  Yet,  nevertheless, 
it  is  the  thing  that  his  admirers  always  feel  the 
lack  of  in  his  pictures.  He  has  no  comeliness  of 
style,  no  charm  of  statement,  no  grace  of 
presentation.  To  the  last  he  is  a  barbarian  for  all 
that  we  may  feel  beneath  his  brush 

"  the  surge  and  thunder  of  the  '  Odyssey.'  " 

I^nfortunately,  mueli  of  Homer's  barbarism  of 
the  brush  lives  after  him  while  his  splendid  vision 


lu  a:merican  pain  ting 

and  stubborn  character  are  in  danger  of  being 
interred  with  his  bones.  He  himself  has  be- 
come a  tradition,  a  master  to  be  imitated,  for 
though  he  founded  no  school  and  had  no  pupils, 
a  great  many  young  painters  in  America  have 
been  influenced  by  his  pictures.  The  majority  of 
these  young  men  have  concluded  that  Homer's 
strength  lay  in  the  rawness  and  savagely  of  his 
method;  they  have  not  gripped  the  fact  that  his 
compelling  force  was  a  matter  of  mind  rather 
than  of  hand.  An  imitator  can  always  be  counted 
upon  to  clutch  at  a  mannerism  and  neglect  a 
mentahty.  So  it  is  that  many  a  young  art  student 
of  to-day,  with  just  enough  imagination  to  con- 
jure up  an  apple-blossom  landscape  is  painting 
with  the  crude  color  and  gritty  brush  of  Homer, 
thinking  thereby  to  get  something  "strong." 

What  a  dreadful  mistake  I  A  surly  surface  of 
heaped-up  paint  77iinus  the  drawing  that  is 
Homer !  And  the  juvenile  error  of  supposing 
that  the  knowledge  of  a  lifetime  can  be  picked 
up  and  handed  out  by  a  glib  imitator  in  the  few 
hours  of  a  summer  afternoon  !  The  attempt  pre- 
supposes art  to  be  merely  a  conjurer's  trick — a 
supposition  that  history  does  not  sustain. 

Homer  cannot  be  counted  fortunate  in  his  fol- 
lowers. Accepting  a  surface  appearance  of 
strength  as  the  all-in-all  of  art,  they  have  aban- 
doned grace  of  form  with  charm  of  color — flung 
the  decorative  to  the  winds.  We  are  now  asked 
to  admire  this  or  that  because  it  is  ""real''  or 


^^^xsLOw  homer  iis 

"just  as  I  saw  it,"  or  "absolutely  true" — as 
though  such  apologies  in  themselves  were  suf- 
ficient reasons  for  fine  art.  But  Homer  long  be- 
fore he  died  withdrew  to  Front's  Xeck  and  aban- 
doned his  fellows  of  the  brush.  He  no  doubt 
thought  them  quite  hopeless.  Perhaps  there  was 
reason  behind  his  thinking. 

Of  course  he  cannot  be  held  responsible  for 
their  paint  pretenses.  His  rank  as  a  painter  will 
be  made  up  from  his  own  works.  By  them 
he  will  be  judged  and  they  will  surely  stand 
critical  estimate.  For  nothing  more  virile,  more 
positive,  more  wholesome  has  ever  been  turned 
out  in  American  art.  He  had  something  to 
say  worth  listening  to.  And  he  said  it  about 
our  things  and  in  our  way.  Xo  one  will  question 
for  an  instant  the  Americanism  of  his  art.  The 
very  rudeness  of  it  proclaims  its  place  of  origin. 
Reflecting  a  civilization  as  yet  quite  new  to  art, 
a  people  as  yet  very  close  to  the  soil,  what  truer 
tale  has  been  told  I  The  fortitude  of  the  pioneer, 
with  the  tang  of  the  unbroken  forest  and  the 
unbeaten  sea  are  in  it. 

Homer  was  not  the  Leonardo  but  the  Mantegna 
of  American  art.  He  came  too  early  for  perfect 
expression,  but,  hke  many  of  the  rude  forefath- 
ers, he  had  the  fine  virtue  of  sincerity.  You 
cannot  help  but  admire  his  frankness,  his 
honesty,  even  his  brutahty.  There  is  no  pretense 
about  him;  he  makes  no  apology',  offers  no  pref- 
ace or  explanation.  He  presents  a  point  of  view, 


114  -\MERICAN  P.UXnSG 

and  in  the  veiy  brusqueness  of  his  presentation 
seems  to  say:  "Take  it  or  let  it  alone."  He  must 
have  known  his  expression  was  incomplete.  Did 
he  realize  that  art  was  too  long  and  life  too 
short  to  round  the  whole  circle?  The  majority 
of  painters  move  over  only  a  small  segment  of 
the  span.  At  sixty.  Homer  had  no  more  than 
found  his  theme.  It  would  have  taken  another 
lifetime  to  have  given  him  style  and  method. 
And  even  then,  grace  of  accomplishment  might 
have  weakened  force  of  conception.  He  had  his 
errors,  but  perhaps  they  emphasized  his  funda- 
mental trnths.  So  perhaps  we  should  be  thank- 
ful that  he  was  just  what  he  was — a  great  Ameri- 
can painter  who  was  s'_L£cient  unto  himself  in 
both  thought  and  expression. 


JOHN  LA  FAROE 


VI 

JOHN  LA  FARGE 

La  Farge  is  an  exceptional  man  in  American 
painting — the  exception  that  will  perhaps  prove 
the  value  of  tradition  and  education  in  the  craft. 
More  than  any  other  in  our  history  he  was  born 
to  art.  He  did  not  live  through  a  barefoot  stage 
on  a  farm  and  then  by  chance  come  to  a  speaking 
acquaintance  with  painting  at  twenty  or  there- 
abouts; he  could  not  boast  of  a  struggle  against 
adverse  circumstances  in  an  uncongenial  en- 
vironment. On  the  contrary,  he  was  rather  lux- 
uriously raised  in  a  city,  and  as  a  child  found  art 
in  the  family  circle  and  a  part  of  the  family  life. 
He  had  begun  to  see,  hear,  and  think  about  it  at 
six  years  of  age.  At  thirty,  when  he  definitely  de- 
cided to  accept  painting  as  a  vocation,  he  knew 
the  tale  quite  well,  was  highly  endowed  intel- 
lectually, and  had  the  insight  and  the  imagina- 
tion to  see  things  in  significant  aspects.  What 
wonder  that  he  made  an  impression  and  left  a 
body  of  work  that  voiced  authority !  He  himself 
became  a  master,  caught  up  the  torch  and  car- 
ried on  the  light,  spreading  it  and  diffusing  it  in 
this  new  world.  He  was  an  inheritor  and  trans- 
mitter of  art  as  well  as  a  creator  of  it. 

117 


118  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

By  that  I  do  not  mean  that  La  Farge  was 
raised  in  a  studio  and  trained  in  hand  and  eye 
like  a  Florentine  apprentice,  but  rather  that  his 
family,  with  its  collateral  branches,  was  made  up 
of  highly  educated  dilettanti,  and  art  as  a  theme 
was  ever  up  with  them  for  discussion  and  ap- 
preciation. He  grasped  it  historically  and  aes- 
thetically long  before  he  took  it  up  professionally. 
The  practical  processes  were  taught  him,  to 
some  extent,  even  as  a  child;  but  the  philosophy 
came  first  and  remained  with  him  to  the  last. 
It  was  the  French  philosophy  of  taste — the  best 
of  the  time — and  La  Farge  himself  was  French 
save  for  the  accident  of  his  birth  here  in  New 
York.  It  was  the  tradition  of  Delacroix  that  he 
finally  accepted  and  transplanted  here  in  Ameri- 
can soil,  adding  to  it,  of  course,  his  own  pro- 
found thought  and  fine  feeling.  "He  prided  him- 
self on  faithfulness  to  tradition  and  convention,'* 
according  to  his  long-time  friend  Henry  Adams. 

The  story  of  his  birth  and  education  reads 
somewhat  romantically  to-day,  though  it  was 
only  yesterday  that  he  was  here.  His  father  as  a 
young  man  was  an  officer  in  the  French  navy 
and  had  been  sent  to  Santo  Domingo,  during  an 
uprising  there,  to  seize  Toussaint  the  revolution- 
ist. The  enterprise  went  against  him,  but  he 
escaped  the  general  massacre  that  followed  and 
eventually  found  himself  a  refugee  in  the 
United  States.  He  did  not  return  to  France, 
but  instead  went  into  sugar-growing  in  Loui- 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  119 

siana,  acquired  property  in  New  York,  and 
married  there  a  daughter  of  M.  Binsse  de  St. 
Victor,  a  Santo  Domingo  sugar-planter,  who, 
like  himself,  had  been  driven  from  the  island 
by  the  uprising  under  Toussaint.  These  French 
refugees  were  La  Farge's  parents  and  he,  himself, 
was  born  in  Beach  Street,  near  St.  John's 
Church,  in  1835.  The  house  was  in  what  has 
latterly  been  called  old  New  York  and  La  Farge 
never  entirely  got  out  of  that  quarter.  During 
his  life  he  did  not  live  above  Tenth  Street. 

His  parents  were  very  cultivated  people  and 
as  a  boy  La  Farge's  education  was  precisely 
guided.  His  father  was  a  rather  severe  type  and 
instilled  rugged  principles.  He  was  a  good 
teacher,  and  the  pupil  was  brought  up  to  do 
exact  thinking.  In  his  reading  he  was  not  per- 
mitted to  roam  at  large.  He  tells  us  in  his  letters 
and  communications  to  Mr.  Cortissoz,  whose 
admirable  account  I  am  paraphrasing,*  that 
as  a  child  he  read  French  and  English,  read 
St.  Pierre,  Rousseau,  Bossuet,  Homer,  De  Foe, 
Voltaire — certainly  an  odd  lot  of  authors  for 
childish  consumption.  The  house  was  full  of 
books — Moliere,  Racine,  Corneille,  Cervantes, 
Byron — some  of  them  illustrated  with  handsome 
Turneresque  engravings,  which  no  doubt  had 
quite  as  much  influence  on  the  boy  as  the 
printed  texts.  The  outlook  of  his  parents  was 

*  John  La  Farge:  A  Memoir  and  a  Study,  by  Royal  Cortissoz,  Boston, 
1911. 


120  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

large  and  La  Farge  grew  up  in  an  atmosphere 
of  liberal  ideas. 

As  for  the  house,  he  speaks  of  it  as  being  "really 
very  elegant  "  and  regarding  the  pictures  on  the 
walls,  he  says: 

"The  influences  which  I  felt  as  a  little  boy 
were  those  of  the  paintings  and  the  works  of  art 
that  surrounded  me  at  home."  There  were  ex- 
amples in  the  house  of  Vernet,  Le  Moyne,  Sal- 
vator  Rosa,  Sebastiano  del  Piombo,  many  Dutch 
pictures,  particularly  "a  beautiful  Salomon 
Rysdael."  "It  so  happened  that  my  very  first 
teachings  were  those  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  my  training  has  covered  almost  a  century 
and  a  half." 

At  six  he  had  wished  to  draw  and  paint,  and 
was  handed  over  to  his  maternal  grandfather 
to  be  taught.  The  grandfather  had  been  ruined 
by  his  Santo  Domingo  losses,  and  in  his  age  had 
no  other  resource  than  to  fall  back  upon  the 
polite  learning  he  had  acquired  in  his  youth. 
He  took  up  miniature  painting  and  gave  draw- 
ing lessons  because,  as  La  Farge  explained  it, 
"it  was  in  the  family." 

"On  a  small  scale  he  was  an  exquisite  painter. 
He  was  also  a  good  teacher  and  started  me  at 
six  years  old  in  the  traditions  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  .  .  .  The  teaching  was  as  mechanical 
as  it  could  be  and  was  rightly  based  upon  the 
notion  that  a  boy  ought  to  be  taught  so  as  to 
know  his  trade.  There  was  not  the  slightest  al- 
leviation and  no  suggestion  of  this  being  'art.'" 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  121 

He  was  taught  to  sharpen  crayons,  to  fasten 
paper,  to  draw  parallel  lines,  and  produce  a  tint. 
Gradually  he  came  to  copy  such  things  as  en- 
gravings. The  work  became  more  interesting, 
and  at  eight  he  could  do  something  that  had 
resemblance  to  an  original.  Later  he  copied 
everything  that  came  to  hand  and  was  free  to 
do  as  he  pleased. 

In  the  meantime  his  general  education  was  not 
neglected.  His  grandmother  Binsse  de  St.  Victor 
had  opened  a  school  for  young  ladies  which 
was  very  successful.  La  Farge  as  a  boy  took  les- 
sons under  her,  and  in  his  reminiscences  recalls 
the  severity  of  his  drilling  in  eighteenth-century 
French.  He  got  English  from  an  English  govern- 
ess, and  some  German  from  an  Alsatian  nurse. 
Then  came  books  and  school  and  the  dreariness 
of  lessons  on  dry  themes.  He  was  sent  to  Colum- 
bia Grammar  School,  passed  into  Columbia 
College,  changed  over  to  Fordham,  and  finally, 
in  1853,  graduated  at  Mount  St.  Mary's  in 
Maryland. 

He  recalls  that  during  his  school-days  there 
was  much  reading  of  history,  literature,  and 
archaeology.  In  English  his  professor  led  him  to 
read  Newman  and  Ruskin — the  two  great  mas- 
ters of  style,  though  the  one  was  classic  and 
the  other  romantic.  In  French  there  was  De 
Musset,  Balzac,  Heine.  He  was  familiar  with 
Greek  and  Latin — he  could  not  have  graduated 
from  a  Catholic  college  without  knowing  Latin 
— and  had  early  gone  over  the  classical  writers 


122  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

in  the  original  languages.  As  for  art,  he  studied 
engravings  of  Durer  and  lithographs  of  the  old 
masters.  "An  English  water-color  painter  had 
been  found  who  gave  me  thoroughly  English 
lessons."  After  college  days  he  got  lessons  from  a 
French  artist.  In  later  life,  looking  at  his  draw- 
ings made  in  the  early  fifties,  he  thought  them 
*' respectable."  "They  were  largely  based  on 
line  and  construction,  which  of  course  gives  a 
basis  of  seriousness." 

After  graduation  he  entered  a  lawyer's  office 
and  began  studying  law,  though  he  still  held 
his  interest  in  art.  Some  pictures  of  the  men 
of  1830  were  beginning  to  come  into  the  country 
and  he  recalls  buying  for  a  few  dollars  a  Diaz,  a 
Troyon,  and  a  Bargue,  and  his  delight  in  them. 
He  met  artists  like  Inness,  talked  art  and 
thought  much  about  it,  but  he  was  not  yet  pre- 
pared to  embrace  it  for  better  or  worse.  In 
1856,  when  he  was  twenty-one,  he  went  to  Eu- 
rope, not  minded  even  then  to  study  art  profes- 
sionally, but  merely  wishing  travel  for  travel's 
sake  and  to  be  for  a  time  a  looker-on. 

He  went  directly  to  Paris  and  joined  his  cousin, 
Paul  Binsse  (or  Bins),  Comte  de  St.  Victor,  who 
was  just  then  holding  prominent  place  in  Hter- 
ary  and  journalistic  Paris.  The  cousin  was  writ- 
ing in  a  brilliant  style  dramatic,  literary,  and 
art  criticism  for  Le  Pays,  La  Presse,  and  La 
Liberie,  and  publishing  books  such  as  Hommes  et 
DieuXy   Barhares  et  Bandits,   Les  Dieux  et  les 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  123 

Demi-Dieux  de  la  peinture.  He  was  in  associa- 
tion with  the  Goncourts,  Sainte-Beuve,  Theo- 
phile  Gautier,  Victor  Hugo,  Flaubert — all  the 
great  gods  of  little  Paris.  The  father,  Jacques 
Benjamin  Maximilien  Binsse,  Comte  de  St. 
Victor,  had  had  a  literary  and  artistic  vogue 
before  the  son.  He  had  been  the  editor  of  La 
France  and  the  Journal  des  Dehats,  had  written 
for  the  stage  and  the  opera,  and  was  the  author 
of  numerous  books  of  poetry,  archaeology,  and 
history.  He  was  still  alive  and  flourishing  when 
La  Farge  reached  Paris,  and  his  house  was  open 
to  the  young  man  from  America.  It  was  the 
house  of  a  collector  of  paintings;  the  most  famous 
artists  and  literary  men  met  there;  there  was 
much  comment  and  criticism  in  the  air — much 
roaring  of  the  lions.  La  Farge  was  in  the  midst 
of  it.  As  he  expressed  it:  "Art  and  literature 
were  there  at  my  hand,  in  rather  an  ancient 
form,  but  with  the  charm  of  the  past,  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  the  wonderful  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth." 

The  great  uncle  was  in  sympathy  with  the 
classic  and  the  academic,  stood  up  for  David 
and  Guerin,  and  looked  askance  at  everything 
new;  but  the  cousin,  Paul  de  St.  Victor,  was  the 
champion  of  the  younger  men.  La  Farge  was  be- 
tween two  fires  in  the  home  and  listened  to 
botli  sides  when  he  went  abroad.  He  met 
Gerome,  then  a  young  man,  frequented  the 
house  of  Chasseriau,  heard   much  of  the  con- 


124  AIVIERICAN  PAINTING 

troversy  between  Ingres  and  Delacroix.  He 
never  met  Delacroix,  but  was  profoundly  im- 
pressed by  his  works.  He  was  also  much  im- 
pressed at  this  early  time  by  the  glass  in  the 
Paris  churches,  and  during  a  trip  to  Brussels 
met  Henry  Le  Strange,  who  had  decorated  Ely 
Cathedral,  and  through  him  became  interested 
in  methods  of  mural  painting. 

The  father  in  America  thought  that  his  son 
was  wasting  his  time  and  wrote  him  urging  that 
he  take  up  art  seriously.  The  result  was  that 
La  Farge  went  to  Couture's  studio  and  had  a 
talk  with  the  master.  He  did  not  even  then 
think  of  art  as  a  profession,  and  wanted  from 
Couture  not  so  much  technical  education  as 
general  education  in  art.  He  spent  only  two 
weeks  in  the  studio  and  then  set  about  copying 
the  drawings  of  the  old  masters  in  the  Louvre. 
Presently  he  went  to  Munich  and  afterward  to 
Dresden,  copying  in  each  place  more  of  the  draw- 
ings of  the  old  masters.  He  thought  this  a  logical 
and  very  serious  way  of  learning  art.  And  so  it 
was.  In  copying  the  drawings  he  got  at  the 
understructure  whereas  in  the  paintings  he 
got  only  the  surface.  La  Farge  from  first  to  last 
was  always  seeking  the  logical,  philosophical, 
and  scientific  bases  of  things.  And  meanwhile 
thereby 

"I  kept  in  touch  with  that  greatest  of  all 
characters  of  art,  style — not  the  style  of  the 
academy  or  any  one  man,  but  the  style  of  all 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  125 

the  schools,  the  manner  of  looking  at  art  which 
is  common  to  all  important  personalities,  how- 
ever fluctuating  its  form  may  be." 

In  Copenhagen  he  made  a  copy  of  a  Rem- 
brandt. 

"I  was  enabled  to  learn  a  great  deal  of  the 
methods  of  Rembrandt  and  to  connect  them 
with  my  studies.  .  .  .  Rubens  I  followed  in 
Belgium,  trying  to  see  every  painting  of  his 
throughout  the  whole  kingdom  and  as  many 
of  his  pupils'  as  I  could  gather  in." 

He  had  an  admiration  for  the  severe  training 
of  Rubens  and  for  his  later  prodigal  expenditure 
of  energy  and  paint  on  canvas.  In  the  autumn  of 
1857-1858  he  was  studying  Titian,  Velasquez, 
and  many  others  of  the  famous  masters  at  the 
Manchester  Exhibition  in  England.  There  also 
he  saw  and  studied  the  Preraphaelite  painters 
and  became  acquainted  with  several  of  them. 

"They  made  a  very  great  and  important  im- 
pression upon  me,  which  later  influenced  me 
in  my  first  work  when  I  began  to  paint." 

When  La  Farge  returned  to  New  York  (his 
father's  illness  had  hastened  his  return)  nothing 
as  to  art  had  been  decided  upon  and  no  method 
of  painting  had  been  definitely  learned.  He  had 
had  a  unique  and  very  wonderful  experience  for 
a  young  man,  had  gathered  up  much  informa- 
tion, and  perhaps  unconsciously  had  developed 
an  inquiring  attitude  of  mind.  This  latter  be- 
came his  habitual  attitude;  he  was  always  con- 


126  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

templative,  meditative,  disposed  to  question. 
Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why  he  still  hesi- 
tated about  embracing  art  as  a  profession.  At 
any  rate,  he  went  back  to  the  study  of  law, 
though  not  forsaking  his  interest  in  painting  and 
architecture.  The  following  year  he  took  a  room 
in  the  Tenth  Street  Studio  Building,  where  he 
was  accustomed  to  go  to  make  little  drawings 
and  paint  "in  an  amateurish  way."  He  rec- 
ognized that  he  needed  technical  training  and 
once  more  thought  of  returning  to  Europe  to 
get  it. 

In  1859  he  went  to  Newport  to  study  painting 
under  William  M.  Hunt,  whose  methods  he  did 
not  altogether  like,  though  he  was  fond  of  the 
man.  Hunt  was  then  devoted  to  Jean  Francois 
Millet,  and,  through  Hunt,  La  Farge  came  to 
know  that  painter's  work.  He  copied  two  or 
three  of  Millet's  pictures  but  could  not  accept 
him  wholly  any  more  than  he  could  Hunt. 
The  truth  was  that  even  then  La  Farge  was  an 
original  and  would  follow  no  one.  He  could  not 
abide  recipes  for  doing  or  making  things,  though 
eventually  he  invented  a  recipe  of  his  own  and 
followed  that. 

At  Newport  he  did  some  landscapes  looking 
through  a  window  to  show  the  difference  in 
light  between  the  inside  and  the  outside.  It 
was  for  educative  purposes,  not  for  picture- 
making.  In  the  same  way  he  painted  flowers  in 
a  vase  at  haphazard,  or  did  the  corner  of  a  table, 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  127 

with  no  idea  of  composition  but  merely  to  get 
acquainted  with  all  phases  of  light,  texture,  and 
surface.  The  next  year  he  was  back  in  New 
York,  painting  was  temporarily  abandoned,  and 
presently  he  departed  for  Louisiana.  He  could 
not,  however,  keep  away  from  painting  wher- 
ever he  went,  and  he  soon  returned  to  New 
York  to  start  a  picture"  of  St.  Paul  Preaching 
for  the  Church  of  the  Paulists.  With  John  Ban- 
croft he  next  took  up  the  question  of  light  and 
color,  then  being  investigated  by  scientific  men. 
That,  he  declares,  had  an  important  influence 
on  his  later  work.  But  probably  the  event  that 
definitely  decided  him  for  an  art  career  was  his 
marriage  in  1860  to  Miss  Margaret  Brown 
Perry,  a  great-granddaughter  of  Benjamin 
Franklin. 

I  have  helped  myself  largely  to  Mr.  Cortis- 
soz's  book  (for  which  I  am  sure  he  will  not 
quarrel  with  me)  regarding  these  educational 
happenings  of  La  Farge's  early  days,  because 
they  point  to  an  unusual  acquaintance  with 
philosophic,  literary,  and  artistic  traditions.  La 
Farge  was  saturated  with  them  at  twenty-two. 
Ilis  education  was  extraordinary  when  com- 
pared with  his  American  contemporaries — In- 
ness,  Wyant,  Martin,  Homer.  He  had  found 
himself  before  he  was  thirty  and  knew  what  he 
wanted  to  say  and  do,  whereas  Homer  at  sixty 
was  still  uncertain  and  groping.  Art  had  come 
to  La  Farge  almost  as  a  child  learns  to  talk. 


128  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

that  IS,  unconsciously,  without  great  effort. 
The  formulas  had  been  largely  thought  out  for 
him  and  he  had  merely  to  accept  them.  With 
Inness,  Wyant,  and  Martin  it  was  necessary  to 
make  their  own  formulas,  work  out  their  own 
philosophy,  establish  their  own  premises.  And 
that,  too,  after  they  had  come  to  man's  estate. 
La  Farge  had  a  great  advantage  over  them. 
He  was  not  only  born  to  art  but  had  it  thrust 
upon  him.  With  his  fine  natural  endowments 
of  mind  and  eye  it  is  not,  perhaps,  remarkable 
that  he  afterward  was  able  to  achieve  art  in  a 
large  way  and  in  more  than  one  department. 

But  he  did  not  rest  content  with  his  early 
experiences.  He  took  up  new  problems  and 
remained  a  student  to  his  latest  day.  His 
mental  curiosity  was  remarkable.  He  was 
always  trying  to  get  at  the  cause  or  sequence 
of  things.  I  remember  very  well  arguing  at 
him  one  day,  with  undue  vehemence  perhaps, 
about  some  question  of  the  hour,  and  hearing  his 
quiet  answer  that  it  made  no  difference  which  of 
us  was  right,  but  that  we  should  go  along  to- 
gether and  try  to  get  at  the  truth.  That  was  his 
Gallic  cast  of  mind.  He  had  no  wish  or  care  to 
put  the  other  fellow  in  the  wrong,  and  as  for  dis- 
putatious argument,  it  was  not  intellectually 
good  form.  In  this  respect  Ruskin  had  amused 
and  vexed  him  during  his  early  years.  The 
great  critic  was  not  only  wrong  in  matter  but 
in  the  method  of  presenting  it.  Fromentin,  on 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  129 

the  contrary,  pleased  him  much.  The  French 
critic's  mind  was  of  the  same  order  as  his  own. 

La  Farge  had  evidently  heard  of  Japanese  art 
in  Paris,  for  in  1863  he  began  collecting  Japanese 
prints,  sending  directly  to  Japan  for  them. 
He  records  that  he  imported  at  that  time  many 
for  himself  and  his  friend  Bancroft.  He  was  in- 
terested not  only  in  their  linear  patterns  but 
in  their  color  relations,  particularly  as  shown  in 
landscape.  He  was  painting  landscapes  at  this 
time  and  working  out-of-doors. 

"My  programme  was  to  paint  from  nature  a 
portrait  and  yet  to  make  distinctly  a  work  of 
art  which  should  remain  as  a  type  of  the  sort 
of  subject  I  undertook." 

Almost  the  whole  of  his  theory  of  art  lies  in  that 
sentence.  It  will  apply  to  his  painting  of  water- 
lilies  as  well  as  to  his  figures  or  landscapes. 
He  was  after  a  type  of  the  species — something 
typical  and  universal  rather  than  something  odd 
or  singular.  Perhaps  the  most  notable  result  of 
his  theory  and  practice  at  this  time  was  the 
landscape  called  "Paradise  Valley,"  painted  be- 
tween 1866  and  1868. 

The  material  for  the  "Paradise  Valley"  was 
found  along  the  Rhode  Island  coast  near  New- 
port. It  is  a  bare,  almost  treeless,  scene,  looking 
down  toward  the  sea,  and  is  cut  up  somewhat 
in  the  middle  distance  by  the  angle  lines  of  stone 
fences.  There  is  nothing  about  it  of  "the  view," 
nothing   that   a  Hudson   River  painter  would 


130  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

have  looked  at  the  second  time;  yet  La  Farge 
added  beauty  to  its  bare  truth  in  such  degree 
that  it  became  a  masterpiece.  All  of  the  painter's 
studies  in  light  and  line  were  put  into  it  and 
yet  kept  from  attracting  too  much  attention  in 
the  exposition.  And  all  of  the  infinite  variety  of 
tone  and  color  common  to  the  Atlantic  shore 
landscape  were  added  and  blended  together  as 
one.  The  type  as  a  whole  emerged — the  uni- 
versal came  out  of  the  commonplace.  A  more 
perfect  piece  of  work,  a  more  beautiful  picture 
of  landscape,  had  not  then,  and  has  not  since, 
been  produced  in  American  art.  Of  its  kind  it  is 
unequalled. 
The  last  time  I  saw  this  landscape  was  many 
years  ago  at  an  exhibition  in  the  gallery  of  the 
Century  Club.  It  held  the  place  of  honor  on  the 
wall,  and  I  was  looking  at  it,  praising  it  un- 
stintedly to  a  friend  standing  beside  me.  After  I 
had  exhausted  my  adjectives,  I  became  aware 
of  some  one  in  the  room  behind  me.  I  turned 
and  saw  La  Farge  standing  there.  Whether  or  not 
he  had  overheard  me  I  did  not  know,  but  there 
being  nothing  to  conceal,  I  told  him  just  what 
I  had  been  saying  to  my  companion.  He  smiled 
and  bowed  and  seemed  greatly  pleased.  He 
was  always  too  polite  to  question  the  comph- 
ments  of  his  admirers,  and  much  too  broad- 
minded  to  scoff  at  praise,  however  unintelligent 
he  might  think  it.  But  the  point  of  my  story  is 
further  along. 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  131 

After  his  telling  me  how  he  came  to  paint  the 
landscape  and  what  he  had  sought  to  make  out 
of  it,  I  asked  him  why  he  had  not  continued 
with  work  of  that  kind — why  he  had  not 
painted  more  Paradise  Valleys.  His  answer  was 
that  he  had  done  a  number  of  landscapes  simi- 
lar in  character  but  that  no  one  seemed  to  care 
for  them.  There  was  no  audience,  no  demand 
for  them,  and,  worst  of  all,  no  one  would  buy 
them.  He  was  forced  to  do  something  that  would 
produce  a  revenue.  That  seemed  to  me  at  the 
time  deplorable,  but  perhaps  it  was  not  all 
sheer  loss  to  art,  for  his  lack  of  pecuniary  suc- 
cess with  easel  pictures  rprobably  had  much  to 
do  with  his  taking  up  mural  decoration  and 
glass-work. 

With  a  select  public,  however.  La  Farge  had 
already  won  recognition.  His  landscapes  and 
flower  pictures — especially  the  latter  with  their 
lovely  color,  texture,  and  surface,  and  that  inde- 
finable feeling  that  is  La  Farge — met  with 
appreciation  from  artists  [and  amateurs.  The 
Academy  of  Design  elected  him  to  Its  member- 
ship, and,  a  little  later,  a  firm  of  Boston  pub- 
lishers began  publishing  some  of  his  illustrations 
made  for  Browning's  poems.  He  had  planned 
some  three  hundred  drawings  for  Browning, 
and  for  an  edition  of  the  Gospels  many  more. 
These  were  La  Farge's  romantic  days,  and  the 
influences  of  French  romanticism  Intellectually 
and  his  Japanese  prints  technically  were  rather 


132  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

strong  with  him.  In  fancy  he  was  harking  back 
to  Greek  and  mediseval  myths,  Bible  legends, 
and  Arabian  Nights  tales.  But  only  a  few 
drawings  from  each  field  finally  found  their 
way  into  print.  They  appeared  in  the  old  River- 
side Magazine  and  were  accounted  very  effective, 
even  after  the  engraver  had  translated  them. 
Every  one  who  has  written  about  La  Farge  has 
devoted  a  page  or  so  to  an  analysis  of  his  "Wolf 
Charmer"  and  "Piper  of  Hamelin."  Criticised 
they  were  for  what  has  been  declared  faulty 
construction  and  drawing  but  never  for  their 
lack  of  life.  They  were  excellent  examples  of 
naturalistic  drawing  wherein  accuracy  is  often 
sacrificed  to  vitality.  But  the  telling  quality 
of  the  illustrations  was  not  so  much  their  tech- 
nique as  their  imagination.  La  Farge  had  inner 
as  well  as  outer  vision,  and  the  conception  of 
the  wolf  charmer,  for  example,  as  half-wolf 
himself,  gnawing  rather  than  playing  his  pipe, 
was  perhaps  the  better  part  of  its  excellence. 

But  illustration  was  to  engage  his  attention 
for  only  a  short  period.  He  was  interested  in 
things  of  larger  decorative  significance.  De- 
scribing one  day  some  work  of  art  that  I  cannot 
now  recall  he  used  the  word  "decorative"  and 
I  remember  his  pausing  and  saying  rather  em- 
phatically in  parenthesis:  "And  when  I  say 
decorative,  I  am  saying  about  the  best  thing  I 
can  about  a  picture."  Imagination  he  had  in 
abundance,    but    perhaps    it    was    manifested 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  133 

stronger  in  the  light  and  color  of  his  dec- 
orations than  in  such  literary  readings  as  the 
"Wolf  Charmer."  His  glass  wa&  the  finest  flight 
in  color  of  modern  times.  It  remains  so  to  this 
day.  The  same  creative  sense  of  hue  on  a  large 
scale  was  shown  in  his  mural  work.  His  panels 
and  lunettes  have  their  individual  meaning  and 
their  imaginative  presentation  of  the  type,  but 
these  are  only  parts  of  a  whole  which  carries 
again  by  its  decorative  color  sweep. 

His  first  wall  decorations  were  those  for  Trin- 
ity Church,  Boston,  in  1876.  They  were  done 
under  time  pressure  in  less  than  six  months — 
done  in  winter  with  open  windows  and  every- 
body clad  in  overcoats  and  gloves.  Ten  or  a 
dozen  painters  worked  under  him  and  with 
him,  among  them  Frank  Millet,  Francis  Lothrop, 
and  George  Maynard.  It  was  the  first  attempt 
in  America  to  do  church  decoration  on  a  large 
scale  with  a  group  of  painters  directed  by  one 
head.  The  unusual  conditions  and  requirements 
limited  its  success,  and  yet  it  was  quickly  rec- 
ognized as  being  an  initial  step  of  much  im- 
portance and  La  Farge  was  acclaimed  as  the 
leader  of  the  new  order.  Thereafter  commissions 
for  churches,  public  buildings,  and  private  houses 
came  to  him  and  did  not  cease  to  come  up  to  his 
death.  He  at  first  did  panels  for  the  Church 
of  the  Incarnation,  decorations  for  St.  Thomas's 
Church,  afterward  destroyed  by  fire,  and  for  the 
Reid  house  in  New  York;  in  his  late  years  he 


134  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

painted  great  lunettes  for  the  capitol  at  St. 
Paul.  Perhaps  the  climax  of  these  wall-paintings 
is  the  picture  of  the  "Ascension"  set  up  on  the 
chancel  wall  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension, 
in  New  York.  It  is  his  chief  work,  and  is  pic- 
ture-making, wall-painting,  and  church  decora- 
tion all  in  one. 

The  "Ascension"  had  its  origin  in  one  of  La 
Farge's  drawings  for  a  western  chapel.  It  was 
enlarged  to  meet  the  new  need  by  putting  in  at 
the  back  a  high  and  wide  mountain  landscape. 
The  architectural  place  for  it  was  simpliJfied  by 
placing  on  the  chancel  wall  of  the  church  a 
heavily  gilded  moulding,  deep-niched,  and  with 
an  arched  top  which  acted  at  once  both  as  a 
frame  and  a  limit  to  the  picture.  The  space  was 
practically  that  of  a  huge  window  with  a  square 
base  and  a  half -circle  top  requiring  for  its  filling 
two  groups  of  figures  one  above  the  other. 
La  Farge  placed  his  standing  figures  of  the 
apostles  and  the  holy  women  in  the  lower  space 
and  their  perpendicular  lines  paralleled  the 
uprights  of  the  frame;  at  the  top  he  placed  an 
oval  of  angels  hovering  about  the  risen  Christ, 
and,  again,  the  rounded  lines  of  the  angel  group 
repeated  the  curves  of  the  gilded  arch. 

There  was  no  great  novelty  in  this  arrange- 
ment. It  was  frankly  adopted  from  Italian 
Renaissance  painting  and  had  been  used  for  high 
altar-pieces  by  all  the  later  painters — Andrea 
del  Sarto,  Raphael,  Titian,  Palma.  They  had 


"'I'lic  Muse,""   hy  .loliii    L;i    l"';irU(' 

In  ll.r   M.lrc.|M.lil;,ii   \..i-.'  111!  .,f  Arl. 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  135 

worked  out  the  best  way  of  filling  that  up- 
right-and-arched  space,  and  La  Farge  followed 
the  tradition  because  he  recognized  its  suffi- 
ciency. But  when  all  that  is  said  it  should  be 
added  that  his  "Ascension"  is  no  close  following 
of  Italian  example.  The  grouping  is  different 
and  the  setting  is  quite  the  opposite  of  the 
Italian.  This  is  an  open-air  Ascension,  not  a 
studio-hghted  gathering  of  academic  figures 
posed  merely  to  repeat  each  other's  linear  con- 
tours. The  apostles  stand  in  a  great  valley 
plain  with  mountains  at  the  sides  and  back. 
They  stand  in,  not  out,  of  the  landscape.  The 
angels  are  in  a  huge  floating  oval  about  the  risen 
Christ.  What  beautiful  moving  circling  figures 
they  are  !  With  what  superb  recognition  of  light, 
air,  and  space  they  are  given !  And  how  they 
hold  their  exact  place  in  relation  to  the  back- 
ground and  to  the  figures  below  them !  All  of 
La  Farge's  knowledge  and  skill  came  into  play 
in  painting  these  two  groups  that  contrast  with 
and  yet  complete  each  other.  They  are  his 
highest  achievement  in  figure-painting.  It  may 
be  merely  provincial  pride  that  makes  one 
think  they  do  not  suffer  by  comparison  with 
the  groups  of  the  great  Italians,  yet  there  are 
intelligent  people  who  believe  that. 

But  after  one  has  studied  and  wondered  over 
these  figures,  he  begins  to  look  further,  and 
finally  comes  to  question  if  the  enveloping  land- 
scape is  not  the  more  beautiful  part  of  the  pic- 


136  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

ture.  No  such  landscape  was  ever  painted  by 
any  old  master,  not  even  by  Titian  in  his  "Pres- 
entation'* picture  in  the  Venice  Academy.  And 
thereby  hangs  a  tale.  La  Farge  could  not  at  first 
get  the  right  landscape  for  it,  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  work,  that  is  in  1886,  he  and  his  friend 
Henry  Adams  went  on  a  long  trip  to  Japan.  It 
was  in  the  mountains  of  Japan  (or  was  it,  per- 
haps, later  in  the  South  Sea  islands  ?)  that  he  saw 
and  sketched  the  superb  landscape  that  now  does 
service  in  the  background  of  the  "Ascension.'* 
It  fitted  the  figures  exactly  and  is  their  natural 
and  proper  environment.  Figures  and  groups 
from  Italy  that  are  not  Italian  and  landscapes 
from  Japan  that  are  not  Japanese  blend  together 
perfectly  because  translated,  transmuted,  by 
the  genius  of  La  Fa;-ge  into  something  that  is 
peculiarly  his  own  type  of  the  Ascension.  In 
such  fashion,  and  of  such  materials,  is  great  art 
brought  into  being. 

La  Farge's  glass-work  carried  over  the  greater 
part  of  his  artistic  life.  Mr.  Cortissoz  tells  us  that 
he  did  several  thousand  windows  of  various  pat- 
terns and  designs.  For  many  years,  and  up  to 
his  death,  he  had  a  shop  in  South  Washing- 
ton Square  where,  with  assistants  and  work- 
men, the  more  mechanical  part  of  window  con- 
struction was  carried  on.  But  he  looked  after 
every  part  of  it  from  start  to  finish.  He  never 
let  go  of  his  workman,  never  allowed  himself 
as  a  designer  to  be  eliminated  by  turning  his 


JOHN  LA  FAROE  137 

design  over  wholly  to  the  shop.  He  followed 
up  everything  and  exacted  results  while  inspir- 
ing enthusiasm  and  intelligence  in  his  men.  The 
result  was  that  the  work,  in  spite  of  the  touch  of 
others,  remained  peculiarly  that  of  La  Farge  and 
bore  his  individual  stamp. 

In  window-making  he  tried  dozens  of  different 
experiments  to  get  depth,  variation,  and  com- 
plement of  tone  by  repeated  platings  of  pot- 
metal  glass.  As  a  result  he  produced  brilliant 
jewel-like  glass  theretofore  never  dreamed  of. 
With  iridescent  and  opalescent  sheets  at  hand 
in  countless  tones  and  shades  he  began  the 
construction  of  his  window,  not  in  patches  of 
color,  but  with  a  crayon  cartoon,  just  as  he  had 
designed  pictures.  He  made  a  pattern,  filled  the 
spaces  rightly,  and  thought  of  the  colors  after- 
ward. The  lead  lines  helped  out  the  design  and 
did  not  break  or  block  it  by  haphazard  cross- 
ings at  stated  intervals.  In  other  words,  his  ra- 
diant color  schemes  were  every  one  of  them 
based  in  design  and  had  a  foundation  of  drawing 
under  them. 

"This,  then,  is  a  study  of  line  and  is  different 
from  the  notion  of  some  Intellectual  friends  that 
tlie  line  is  to  be  put  on  afterward."  *' 

And  yet  there  was  no  attempt  to  do  in  glass 
what  could  be  better  done  on  canvas.  The 
brilliant  transparent  tones  were  peculiarly  fitted 
for  glass  because  they  could  not  be  squeezed 

*  La  Fargo  in  a  Idler  lo  Mr.  Cortissoz. 


138  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

out  of  a  tube  or  laid  down  with  a  brush.  I  recall 
seeing  in  his  shop  years  ago  a  tall  narrow  win- 
dow, done,  if  I  remember  rightly,  for  the 
Whitney  house,  showing  a  robed  female  figure 
scattering  autumn  leaves  upon  a  pool.  The  bril- 
liant autumn  tints,  the  light  from  the  reflecting 
water,  would  have  been  impossible  to  render 
fully  with  pigments,  and  the  blending  of  light 
and  air  seemed  attainable  only  with  La  Farge's 
delicate  opaline  glass.  It  seemed  to  me  at  the 
time  a  quite  wonderful  window,  and  yet  he  did 
many  of  them  pitched  in  the  same  key  of  splen- 
dor. 

In  the  midst  of  wall  and  window  decorations 
La  Farge  found  little  time  for  easel-painting 
— something  he  regretted  but  could  not  help. 
Twice,  however,  he  broke  away  from  the  shop 
and  went  upon  long  trips.  The  first  was  to 
Japan  with  Henry  Adams  in  1886.  Out  of  that 
came  many  water-color  sketches  and  drawings, 
besides  a  charming  book,  An  Artisfs  Letters  from 
Japan.  To  some  the  book  is  of  more  interest 
than  the  drawings.  The  temple-doors  and  in- 
teriors and  Buddhas  of  his  sketches  are,  no 
doubt,  truthfully  illustrative,  and  that  is  perhaps 
their  failing  as  pictures.  The  model  was  too 
apparent  and  the  artist  not  so  much  in  evidence 
as  could  be  wished  for.  His  own  negative  defini- 
tion of  art  applies  just  here:  "It  is  never  the 
mere  representation  of  what  we  see."  Some  of 
the  mountain  landscapes,  however,  are  very  fine. 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  139 

and  his  garden  bits  recall  the  early  La  Farge 
of  the  pond-lilies  and  the  "Paradise  Valley." 

His  second  long  trip  was  again  with  Henry 
Adams  and  this  time  to  the  South  Seas.  He  was 
gone  for  a  year  or  more,  from  1890  and  on, 
and  out  of  this  trip  came  another  engaging 
book.  Reminiscences  of  the  South  Seas,  besides 
many  water-color  drawings.  The  water-colors 
were  again  illustrative,  but  perhaps  they  were 
more  animated  than  the  Japanese  series,  had  to 
do  more  intimately  with  the  island  life,  and 
were  often  strikingly  picturesque  in  theme  and 
movement.  With  them  came  also  a  number  of 
small  sea-pieces  showing  bays,  harbors,  and 
islands  done  with  the  greatest  simplicity  and 
yet  having  a  satin-and-silk  quality  about  them 
quite  indescribable  in  its  beauty.  These  silvery 
sea-pieces  are  in  the  same  class  with  La  Farge's 
early  violets  and  roses — things  that  are  exquisite 
in  their  surface  texture  and  their  color  beauty. 
His  mountain  landscapes  of  the  South  Seas  are 
again  superb  in  their  greens  and  blues.  A  love 
and  a  gift  for  landscape  always  remained  with 
him,  and  one  often  wonders,  had  he  devoted 
himself  to  this  alone,  what  new  revelations  of 
the  world  about  us  he  might  have  handed  down 
in  art. 

The  groups  of  natives  in  dances  or  games  or 
ceremonies  naturally  attract  the  most  attention 
in  tlie  South  Seas  water-colors.  Technically 
they  are  interesting  because  of  their  hark  back 


140  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

to  Delacroix.  Not  only  the  reds,  blues,  greens, 
and  flesh  notes  are  like  Delacroix,  but  the  draw- 
ing of  the  hands  and  feet,  the  movement  of  arms 
and  legs  are  much  like  that  master.  All  his 
life  La  Farge  had  carried  that  impress  about 
with  him.  A  few  years  before  he  died  one  of  his 
pictures,  at  an  exhibition  or  sale,  was  so  like  a 
Delacroix  that  at  first,  from  across  the  room, 
I  thought  it  by  the  great  romanticist.  Some 
time  later  in  mentioning  the  fact  to  La  Farge 
he  nodded  his  head  and  said  that  he  had  been 
very  much  influenced  by  Delacroix  and  no 
doubt  unconsciously  did  things  in  his  style  or 
manner. 

To  say  that  one  prefers  La  Farge's  travel  books 
to  his  travel  sketches  is  not  to  disparage  the 
sketches,  for  the  books  were  extraordinarily 
good.  He  had  a  great  admiration  for  Fromentin's 
Une  Annee  dans  le  Sahel^  and  perhaps  that  vol- 
ume had  not  a  little  to  do  in  suggesting  the 
form  of  the  volumes  on  Japan  and  the  South 
Seas.  They  are  impressionistic  in  that  they  re- 
cord moods,  thoughts,  and  talks  that  make  up  a 
quite  perfect  text  for  his  sketches.  They  are 
both  grave  and  gay,  profound  and  volatile,  force- 
ful and  yet  charming.  La  Farge  had  the  literary 
sense  quite  as  much  as  the  pictorial,  and  had  he 
chosen  to  make  a  profession  of  letters  he  would 
perhaps  have  risen  to  as  great  a  height  as  he  did 
in  painting. 

While  a  student  under  Hunt  at  Newport  he 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  141 

became  well  acquainted  with  Henry  James, 
whom  he  later  on  advised  to  take  up  literature. 
In  the  light  of  subsequent  achievement  that  must 
be  regarded  as  good  advice,  and  yet  James  had 
the  pictorial  cast  of  mind  and  might  have  made 
a  fine  painter.  At  any  rate,  some  of  his  best 
work  in  writing  was  his  criticism  of  painting. 
La  Farge,  too,  with  a  mind  pictorially  inclined, 
put  out  some  of  his  best  thoughts  in  a  book  of 
art  criticism  entitled  Considerations  on  Paint- 
ing. It  was  delivered  originally  as  lectures  to  art 
students,  but  it  must  have  shot  far  over  their 
little  heads.  It  is  too  profound  to  be  grasped  at 
once  and  often  requires  a  second  reading  to 
apprehend  the  meaning,  but  it  is  the  best  piece 
of  art  criticism  put  forth  in  America.  In  kind  and 
excellence  it  ranks  with  Fromentin's  Les  Maitres 
(T autrefois — the  classic  of  the  craft. 

Fromentin  was  about  the  only  writer  on  art 
that  La  Farge  cared  for.  He  was  kind  enough 
to  send  me  a  copy  of  his  Considerations  on  Paint- 
ing when  it  was  published,  and  later,  in  talking 
over  the  book  with  him,  he  took  occasion  to  re- 
mark (as  afterward  in  print)  that  he  had  read 
thousands  of  pages  of  art  criticism  "without 
finding  anything  that  a  person  seriously  devoted 
to  his  profession  of  art  could  find  of  the  slightest 
use."  At  the  time  I  ventured  to  suggest  to  him 
that  aid  to  artists  was  not  the  object  of  art 
criticism,  that  an  attempt  to  instruct  pro- 
fessionals would  argue  greater  knowledge  in  the 


142  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

critic  than  in  the  artist  and  be  presumptuous, 
that  the  critic  wrote  for  the  public  and  thought 
to  be  of  service  by  calhng  attention  to  and  ex- 
plaining certain  things  that  might  otherwise  be 
overlooked  or  misjudged.  Moreover,  it  was  sug- 
gested that  the  writer,  too,  had  his  design  and 
pattern  in  words  which  he  was  trying  to  work 
out  artistically  and  decoratively,  and  that  the 
subject,  whether  criticism,  history,  poetry,  or 
fiction,  was  of  as  little  importance  with  him  as 
with  the  painter.  Ruskin  in  art  criticism,  New- 
man in  sermons  and  lectures,  and  Carlyle  in  his- 
tory and  essay  were  possibly  greater  artists  than 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  in  fiction. 
There  was  nothing  new  about  that  to  La  Farge, 
but  he  acquiesced  in  it  by  bowing  and  smiling  a 
little,  especially  over  Ruskin,  for  whom  he  came 
as  near  having  contempt  as  for  any  one.  Not 
only  Ruskin's  ideas  but  his  vehemence  of  style 
were  not  to  La  Farge's  fancy.  He  wrote  in  no 
such  hectic  vein  in  his  Considerations  on  Paint- 
ing. The  whole  treatise  is  an  inquiry,  not  an 
argument,  and  through  it  all  you  feel  the  evenly 
poised,  well-balanced  mind  that  is  weighing  the 
question  and  is  not  to  be  stampeded  by  rhetoric 
or  eloquence  of  any  kind.  He  was  too  intelligent 
for  enthusiasm  or  emotion.  He  thought  out 
everything  very  calmly,  and  in  the  midst  of 
conviction  often  doubted  or  questioned  his  own 
conclusions.  It  was  his  normal  attitude  of  mind 
— a  mind  that  indulged  in  subtleties,  that  saw 
as  many  meanings  in  a  problem  as  a  rug-weaver's 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  14S 

eye  sees  colors  in  a  pattern  of  tapestry.  It  was 
the  attempt  to  put  these  subtleties  in  parenthesis 
that  sometimes  makes  his  Considerations  on 
Painting  hard  reading,  and  yet  no  one  would 
wish  them  deleted.  They  are  side-lights  that 
illumine  the  quest.  The  book  is  an  epitome  of 
La  Farge's  method  of  thinking  and  is  a  type  of  its 
kind  in  literature  as  truly  as  his  "Paradise  Val- 
ley" is  a  type  in  painting. 

As  for  the  philosophic  mind,  he  practically  de- 
scribes himself  in  one  passage  in  an  article  in 
Scribncr's  Magazine*  on  the  "Teaching  of  Art." 
It  is  worth  quoting: 

"The  noblest  of  all  the  gifts  of  the  great  insti- 
tutions of  learning  is  a  certain  fostering  of  eleva- 
tion of  mind.  It  is  not  so  much  by  what  he 
knows  that  the  man  brought  under  the  trainings 
of  the  great  academies  is  marked;  it  is  by  his 
acquaintance  with  the  size  of  knowledge;  with, 
if  I  may  say  so,  the  impossibility  of  completing 
its  full  circle;  with  the  acquaintance  of  the  man- 
ners of  enlarging  his  boundaries;  with  the  respect 
of  other  knowledge  than  his  own ;  with  a  certain 
relative  humility  as  compared  with  the  narrower 
pride  of  him  who  knows  not  the  size  of  the  spaces 
of  the  world  of  knowledge.  And  such  an  attitude 
of  mind,  such  an  elevation  above  petty  prides, 
such  a  belief  in  something  larger  than  one's 
self,  such  an  openness  to  the  world,  is  the  privi- 
lege of  a  full  artistic  development." 

La  Farge  as  a  painter,  as  an  inventor  of  pre- 

*  Scribncrs  Magazine,  vol.  6-t,  page  181. 


144  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

cious  glass,  as  an  illustrator  of  Oriental  life,  as 
a  writer  of  books,  was  a  great  success;  as  a  stu- 
dent, a  man  of  learning,  a  philosopher  and  a 
talker  he  was  not  less  so.  He  had  been  born  of 
cultivated  parents  and  all  his  life  had  been 
saturated  with  the  intellectual.  He  knew  how 
to  think,  weigh,  and  judge  matters,  and  he  knew 
how  to  express  himself  in  paint,  in  letters,  and 
in  w^ords.  His  mental  poise  was  remarkable  for 
its  stability,  though  he  was  not  stubborn  and 
was  always  open  to  new  light.  His  conversation 
was  serious,  and  his  manner  grave,  courteous, 
calm  as  that  of  a  French  academician.  Certain 
eccentricities — mental  habits  that  indicated  the 
questioner — were  peculiar  to  him,  and  Henry 
Adams,  his  travelling  companion,  was  led  to 
speak  of  him  as  a  wonderful  mind  and  a  Avonder- 
ful  contradiction.  By  that,  perhaps  he  meant 
that  La  Farge  always  stopped  short  of  the  posi- 
tive conclusion.  He  guarded  himself  with  quali- 
fying clauses,  as  though  conscious  of  another 
side  to  the  question. 

His  talk  was  quite  as  delightful  as  his  books. 
He  had  read  almost  everything,  knew"  almost 
every  one  in  the  modern  art  world,  and  his 
fund  of  information  seemed  as  exhaustless  as  his 
charm  of  manner.  And  yet  withal  he  was  rather 
a  shy  man  and  had  to  be  sought  out.  For  many 
years  he  dined  regularly  at  the  Century  Club, 
and  more  often  alone  than  with  company.  If 
any  one  sat  opposite  to  him  at  his  little  table. 


JOHN  LA  FARGE  145 

the  chances  were  two  to  one  that  the  visitor 
was  self-invited.  He  held  as  intimates  for  many 
years  Clarence  King,  John  Hay,  and  Henry- 
Adams.  They  must  have  proved  a  rare  quartet 
of  wits  around  a  dinner-table,  for  all  of  them 
were  exceptionally  brilliant  talkers.  But  I  never 
heard  of  a  fifth  at  the  table. 

Honors  had  come  to  La  Farge  from  the  be- 
ginning. He  had  received  medals  and  prizes  and 
degrees,  he  wore  the  Legion  of  Honor  in  his 
buttonhole,  was  president  of  the  Society  of 
American  Artists,  and  an  initial  member  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  He 
took  them  all  very  calmly.  They  were  recogni- 
tions that  he  did  not  despise;  neither  did  he 
count  them  as  crowns  of  glory.  His  well-poised 
mind,  with  its  Oriental  sympathies,  could  rise 
above  praise,  and  yet  he  was  human  enough  to 
like  it.  WTien  the  gold  medal  of  the  Architectural 
League  was  presented  to  him  he  startled  the 
honor-bearers  by  suggesting  that  it  was  late  in 
coming.  That  was  not  so  much  egotism  as  the 
bald  truth,  and  he  could  not  refrain  from 
pointing  it  out. 

La  Farge  had  never  been  physically  robust, 
and  during  his  latter  years  he  had  known  much 
illness.  There  were  periods  when  he  was  totally 
incapacitated  and  could  do  no  more  than  lie  still. 
He  took  that  calmly,  too.  He  was  a  philosopher 
always  and  made  the  best  of  things.  Perhaps 
that  is  the  reason  why  with  his  frail  body  he 


146  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

lived  on  to  seventy -four,  not  dying  until  Novem- 
ber, 1910.  He  lived  his  character  to  the  last, 
and  when  he  died  the  painter-world,  if  no  other, 
knew  that  a  master  mind  as  well  as  a  master 
craftsman  had  passed  out. 

In  the  arts  he  was  our  first  great  scholar  and 
spoke  as  one  having  authority.  With  his  learning, 
his  imagination,  and  his  skill  he  gave  rank  to 
American  art  more  than  any  other  of  the  craft. 
For  that  reason  he  is  to-day  hailed  as  master  and 
written  down  in  our  annals  as  belonging  with  the 
Olympians.  He  deserves  the  title  and  the 
separate  niche. 


VII 
JAMES  ABBOTT   McNEILL  WHISTLER 


VII 

JAMES  ABBOTT   McNEILL  WHISTLER 

After  considering  La  Farge,  it  is  difficult  to 
think  of  Whistler  other  than  in  terms  of  con- 
trast. They  were  of  the  same  time,  their  tastes 
were  not  dissimilar,  and  many  features  of  their 
theory  and  practice  were  in  agreement;  but 
W^histler's  impetuosity  and  contentiousness  seem 
magnified  when  set  over  against  the  gravity 
and  reticence  of  La  Farge.  He  had  not  the 
latter's  mental  poise,  nor  philosophy,  nor  tenac- 
ity, nor  patience.  The  seriousness  of  his  art 
always  suffered  from  the  acrimony  of  his  talk  or 
the  cleverness  of  his  writing  or  the  flare  of  his 
conduct.  He  was  a  wit,  to  be  sure,  but  not  a 
wise  one;  a  brilliant  writer  but  not  a  profound 
on^;  an  aesthetic  bravo  but  not  a  discreet  one. 
His  social  activities  gave  his  art  a  wide  notoriety, 
but  that  rather  harmed  than  helped  its  perma- 
nent fame.  The  mob  enjoj^ed  his  caustic  utter- 
ances but  continued  to  look  askance  at  his 
symphonies  and  nocturnes.  AMiat  else  could 
have  been  expected.^  Art  explains  itself  or  it 
falls.  Talk  may  make  it  talked  about  but  does 
not  establish  its  final  worth. 

And  so  one,  at  times,  wishes  that  ^^^l^stle^  had 
said  nothing,  written  nothing,  explained  nothing. 

149 


150  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

His  art  standing  alone  would  eventually  have 
vindicated  itself  as  did  that  of  Hals  and  Rem- 
brandt and  Velasquez.  There  is  not  the  least 
bit  of  flippancy  or  irritability  or  waspishness 
about  it.  If  we  knew  naught  of  his  life  and  had 
never  read  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies 
and  the  Ten  0' Clock ,  we  could  not  have  derived 
the  militant  Whistler  from  his  pictures.  They 
are  cast  in  a  vein  of  decorative  beauty  and  done 
not  oiily  with  the  greatest  seriousness  but  with 
the  greatest  tranquillity*.  With  their  simplicity 
and  largeness  of  vision,  their  fastidiousness  of 
arrangement,  their  charm  of  mood  and  loveli- 
ness of  color  they  would  point  to  an  Ariel-like 
creator  who  was  in  love  with  color  refinements, 
a  devotee  of  nature's  minor  chords,  her  shadowy 
manifestations,  her  evanescent  harmonies.  And 
that  would  have  been  the  true  Wiistler — the 
Whistler  that  fame  will  not  allow  to  die.  But  his 
clarification  is  still  some  distance  away.  Appreci- 
ation is  clouded  by  the  presence  of  the  egotist, 
the  dandy,  the  bitter-tongued  wit,  the  maker 
of  paradoxes — ^passing  phases  of  temperament 
quite  aside  from  his  reckoning  as  an  artist, 
mental  poses  forced  upon  him  by  circumstances 
which  he  doubtless  felt  he  had  to  meet  and 
OA'ercome. 

That  is  not  to  say  that  the  capacity  for  verbal 
fisticuffs  was  not  born  in  him,  though  he  did  not 
show  it  in  his  early  days,  nor  while  a  student 
in  Paris.  It  was  only  after  he  took  up  life  in 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  151 

London  and  was  reviled  by  British  criticism  that 
he  stepped  outside  of  his  art  to  defend  himself. 
Perhaps  he  took  to  words  as  readily  as  Cellini 
to  throat-cutting  or  Goya  to  bull-fighting,  but 
it  was  not  the  less  unfortunate.  That  Cel- 
lini was  a  bravo  and  Goya  a  roysterer  and 
Whistler  a  maker  of  enemies  merely  suggests 
that  artists  may  have  dual  natures  like  other 
people  and  not  be  the  better  for  them.  Their 
art  is  not  improved  thereby. 

But  it  is  perhaps  useless  to  argue  against  the 
admission  of  the  irrelevant.  The  world  likes  it 
and  will  have  it.  That  Bacon,  Titian,  Goethe 
were  mean  in  spirit  is  inconsequent  back- 
stairs gossip,  but  it  is  taken  as  a  relish  along 
with  their  vision  and  their  wisdom.  Just  so  with 
Whistler.  The  present  generation  of  painters 
thinks  his  Ten  O'Clock  the  law  and  gospel  of 
art,  and  a  dozen  biographies  of  him  record  his 
epigrams  and  corrosive  remarks  along  with  his 
epoch-making  pictures.  We  shall  have  to  take  the 
chaff  with  the  wheat. 

Perhaps  the  chief  infirmity  of  Whistler's  make- 
up was  his  lack  of  patience.  Nature  had  en- 
dowed him  with  a  bright,  alert  mind  that  flashed 
and  scintillated  but  wavered  perhaps  in  con- 
tinuity of  purpose.  It  was  a  true-enough  Ameri- 
can mind  in  that  at  first  it  balked  at  effort  and 
sought  to  vault  over  obstacles  by  bursts  of  speed 
or  sudden  inspiration.  The  average  American 
believes  more  in  inspiration  than  in  work,  though 


152  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

as  applied  directly  to  Whistler  we  must  not 
push  that  point  too  far.  There  were  periods 
when  he  labored  hard  but  there  was  no  prolonged 
patience,  no  calm  philosophy  of  enduring  and 
biding  his  time.  As  a  boy  he  would  never  sub- 
mit entirely  to  education,  and  as  a  young  man 
the  rigor  of  studio-training  fretted  him.  He  took 
as  much  of  each  as  pleased  him  and  let  the 
rest  go.  He  resented  guidance  and  resisted 
discipline  as  more  or  less  of  a  restraint  on 
individuality. 

The  story  of  his  birth,  family,  and  early  educa- 
tion is  told  minutely  in  the  excellent  biography 
by  the  Pennells.*  From  their  account  it  appears 
that  Whistler  was  born  in  Lowell,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1834.  He  was  reported  to  have  been 
born  in  Baltimore,  and  he  did  not  deny  the  re- 
port. "If  any  one  likes  to  think  I  was  born  in 
Baltimore,  why  should  I  deny  it.^  It  is  of  no 
consequence  to  me."  His  parents  were  refined, 
educated  people,  the  best  that  the  United  States 
at  that  time  was  capable  of  producing.  His  father 
was  a  West  Point  graduate,  a  major  in  the 
United  States  army,  and,  at  the  time  of  ^^^lis- 
tler's  birth,  an  engineer,  building  locks  and  ca- 
nals at  Lowell.  In  1843  the  whole  WTiistler  fam- 
ily went  to  Russia,  where  the  father  had  been 
called  by  the  Czar  to  build  the  St.  Petersburg- 
Moscow  Railway.  In  St.  Petersburg  the  children 

*  The  Life  of  James  McNeill  Whistler,  by  E.  R.  and  J.  Permell.  Philadel- 
phia, 1911. 


3XMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WTHSTLER  153 

were  carefully  tutored,  especially  in  such  polite 
learning  as  the  languages  and  the  arts.  WTiistler 
was  already  drawing  in  a  boyish  way,  and  was 
no  doubt  receiving  impressions  of  art  from  vari- 
ous sources.  In  1847  he  was  in  England  for  the 
summer  with  his  mother,  and  again  in  1849  he 
went  there  for  the  winter  because  his  health 
could  not  stand  the  Russian  climate.  In  the  lat- 
ter year  his  father  died,  and  shortly  thereafter 
Mrs.  WTiistler,  with  the  children,  returned  to 
America.  WTiistler  the  boy  was  sent  to  school  at 
Pomfret,  and  his  mother  records  that  he  was  still 
"an  excitable  spirit  with  littler  perseverance," 
and  had  *' habits  of  indolence." 

Two  years  of  Pomfret  and  he  was  entered  as 
a  cadet  at  the  W^est  Point  Military  Academy. 
He  remained  there  three  years,  and  was  dropped 
in  1854  because  deficient  in  chemistry.  Besides, 
he  could  not  remember  dates,  and  at  cavalry 
drill  he  had  difficulty  in  keeping  on  his  horse. 
These  seem  slight  reasons  for  dropping  his 
name  from  the  rolls,  but  the  West  Point  re- 
quirements in  those  days,  as  now,  were  rather 
rigorous.  He  appealed  to  Washington  for  rein- 
statement but  was  denied.  In  its  place  a  job 
was  oflPered  him  in  the  Coast  Survey.  He  ac- 
cepted and  drew  on  government  maps  for  some 
months,  resigning  in  1855.  The  same  year  he 
went  to  Paris  to  study  art  and  entered  the 
studio  of  Gleyre,  one  of  the  leading  semi- 
classic  painters  of  the  time. 


154  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Whistler's  boyhood  and  youth  suggest  little 
out  of  the  ordinary  except  that  he  was  better 
bom,  better  educated,  and  had  better  advan- 
tages than  the  average  aspiring  youth.  In  art  he 
had  left  only  the  usual  record  of  desultory  draw- 
ings. Professor  Weir  at  West  Point  had  given 
him  lessons,  but  nothing  remarkable  resulted 
therefrom.  Some  of  the  sketches  of  his  West 
Point^  days  are  preserved,  and  while  they  are 
not  astonishing,  they  are  nevertheless  moderately 
indicative  of  the  coming  master.  Two  drawings 
called  "The  Valentine"  and  "Sam  Weller  and 
Mary"  have  the  same  small  delicate  line  and 
an  attempt  at  tone  by  shadings  and  hatchings 
that  characterize  his  etchings  and  lithographs 
of  later  date.  But  Whistler's  career  does  not  be- 
gin for  us  until  he  reached  Paris  in  1855 — the 
year  before  La  Farge's  arrival. 

There  are  conflicting  stories  about  what  he 
did  or  did  not  do  under  Gleyre.  He  must  have 
learned  something  of  drawing  and  construction 
besides  such  small  studio  devices  as  arranging 
colors  on  the  palette,  preparing  the  canvas, 
using  ivory -black  as  a  base  of  tone — a,  method 
^\  hich  he  retained  all  his  life.  In  actual  handling 
of  the  brush  he  seems  to  have  gotten  something 
from  his  associates,  Fantin-Latour  and  Degas, 
who  were  then  following  Courbet.  Evidently 
he  did  not  care  for  the  routine  of  the  atelier. 
Drouet,  the  sculptor,  who  was  one  of  his  inti- 
mates, did  not  think  that  he  worked  much 
but  was  well  disposed  toward  jokes,  pranks,  and 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  155 

a  good  time.  By  way  of  interlude  during  his  two 
years  with  Gleyre  he  went  with  a  companion  on 
a  trip  through  Alsace  and  did  some  etchings, 
known  as  the  French  set.  In  1857  he  made  a 
trip  to  England  and  studied  pictures  at  the 
Manchester  Exhibition.  Returned  to  Paris,  he 
remained  there  until  1859,  living  in  the  Latin 
Quarter,  copying  pictures  at  the  Louvre,  and 
doing  original  work  of  his  own.  His  first  notable 
picture,  "At  the  Piano,"  was  sent  to  the  Salon 
of  1859  and  rejected,  though  two  of  his  etchings 
were  accepted.  Sent  to  the  Royal  Academy  the 
same  year,  the  picture  and  the  etchings  were 
well  received  and  praised. 

There  were  many  journeyings  backward  and 
forward  from  London  during  this  year.  Whistler's 
sister  had  married  Seymour  Haden  and  was  liv- 
ing there;  his  student  friends  of  Paris  days — 
Poynter,  Armstrong,  lonides,  Du  Maurier — 
were  there  and  he  had  not  as  yet  quarrelled  with 
them;  above  all,  the  Thames  was  there.  So  finally 
he  took  up  his  residence  in  London  and  began 
work  along  the  river.  He  did  eleven  etchings  of 
the  Thames  set,  and  the  next  year  painted  the 
"Wapping,"  the  "Thames  in  Ice,"  and  later 
in  the  year  "The  Music  Room,"  besides  a 
number  of  portraits.  In  1861  he  was  in  Brittany 
doing  the  "Coast  of  Brittany"  in  the  style  of 
Courbet,  then  in  Paris  at  work  on  "The  White 
Girl,"  and  later  at  Biarritz  painting  "The  Blue 
Wave,"  again  in  the  style  of  Courbet. 

Up  to  this  time  everything  had  gone  fairly  well 


156  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

with  him.  He  had  had  an  artistic  success  at 
the  EngHsh  exhibitions,  though  his  **  White 
Girl"  had  been  rejected;  many  friends — Ros- 
setti,  Burne-Jones,  Swinburne,  and  others — 
recognized  his  abihty;  there  was  as  yet  no 
marked  denunciation  from  press  or  pubHc.  It 
was  not  called  for,  even  from  a  Philistine  point  of 
view.  Nothing  very  ultra  or  bizarre  showed  in 
his  painting.  It  was  modern,  but  it  was  the 
modernity  of  Gleyre,  Courbet,  Fantin — the  ad- 
vanced painting  of  the  times.  The  pattern  of  his 
pictures  was  perhaps  something  of  an  innova- 
tion, because  already  he  had  begun  flattening  it. 
That  may  have  been  the  reason  for  the  rejection 
of  "At  the  Piano"  and  "The  White  Girl."  But 
there  could  have  been  nothing  very  forced  about 
the  flattening  then,  for  to-day  the  pictures  look 
just  a  little  old-fashioned.  For  the  realistic  re- 
quirements of  1860  they  were  extremely  well 
planned  and  executed,  and  the  wonder  now  is 
that  every  one  did  not  give  them  positive  recog- 
nition at  once.  Perhaps  the  handling  was  a  little 
too  free  and  the  modelling  of  the  figures  too  low 
in  relief  for  the  man  in  the  street,  but  on  the 
whole  there  was  small  cause  for  complaint  on  the 
part  of  the  young  painter. 

If  there  was  little  question  at  this  time  about 
TOiistler's  pictures,  there  was  none  at  all  about 
his  etchings.  Eveiy  one,  even  the  stodgiest  of 
Britons,  liked  them.  Perhaps  that  was  due 
again  to  their  conformity  to  custom.  There  was 
little  about  the  early  work  very  different  from 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER         157 

that  of  other  etchers  except  that  it  was  freer, 
surer,  and  better.  The  long  swinging  Hne,  as  in 
the  dry  point  of  "Jo,"  or  the  sharply  contrasted 
blacks,  as  in  the  "Drouet,"  were  given  with 
emphasis.  Contrast  rather  than  uniformity  was 
the  aim  and  there  was  little  attempt  at  pro- 
nounced tone  effect,  or  flattening  of  the  figure, 
or  disturbance  of  perspective — the  thing  most 
dear  to  the  viewing  public.  In  fact,  Whistler's 
etchings  have  always  been  exempt  from  the  de- 
nunciation of  his  paintings.  People  could  see  in 
them  things  realistic  and  representative;  the 
decorative  pattern  did  not  bother  them. 

There  was  no  hue  and  cry  raised  in  England 
over  Whistler's  early  work  because  it  was 
not  vehemently  radical  or  audaciously  assertive. 
He  had  accepted  and  follow^ed  the  classic  tradi- 
tion of  Gleyre,  had  modified  it  by  studies  of 
Rembrandt,  Courbet,  Fantin,  Manet,  had  bet- 
tered it  by  observations  and  methods  entirely 
his  own;  but  he  was  going  with  the  tide,  not 
against  it  or  across  it.  Had  he  died  at,  say, 
twenty-seven,  and  the  world  had  only  his  early 
etchings,  "The  White  Girl,"  "At  the  Piano," 
and  "The  Music  Room,"  to  go  by,  it  is  doubtful 
if  his  dozen  biographies  would  have  been  written, 
or  that  he  would  have  held  more  than  a  modest 
niche  in  the  hall  of  fame.  It  was  when  he  became 
a  great  innovator  that  he  met  with  vitupera- 
tion, and,  by  the  same  token,  it  was  only  then 
that  he  became  a  really  great  artist. 

The  innovation  came  with  his  modification  of 


158  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

the  realistic  tradition  of  the  Western  world  and 
his  introduction  of  the  decorative  tradition  of 
the  Eastern  world.  The  latter  was  a  better-based, 
a  fairer,  a  more  alluring  tradition  than  the  one 
he  had  been  reared  in ;  but  he  did  not,  could  not, 
go  over  to  it  in  its  entirety  and  turn  himself 
into  an  Occidental  painter  on  silk.  That  would 
have  been  mere  forceless  imitation.  Instead  of 
doing  so,  he  strove  to  graft  the  Eastern  shoot 
upon  the  Western  stock,  to  take  what  was  best 
of  Japanese  art  and  blend  it  with  French  art, 
thus  harmonizing  the  two  traditions.  Repre- 
sentative figures  from  the  Western  world  were 
put  into  an  Eastern  pattern  and  made  to  do 
decorative  service.  The  Thames  was  turned  into 
nocturnes,  portraits  were  changed  to  arrange- 
ments in  grays  or  browns  or  blacks,  and  London 
genre  became  so  many  symphonies  or  harmonies 
in  gold,  blue,  or  old  rose.  The  result  was  a  rare 
bouquet  of  orchids  which  the  English  public, 
reared  on  primroses  and  daisies,  did  not  find 
in  its  botany  book  and  could  not  understand. 
No  wonder  there  was  confusion,  misunderstand- 
ing, and  denunciation.  With  his  Oriental  gospel 
Whistler  in  London  was  scoffed  at  and  reviled. 
He  had  brought  a  new  faith  to  English  art,  but 
no  one  believed  in  it  or  would  receive  it.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  stone  the  evangelist. 
The  stoning  roused  his  ire. 

"  though  yoiiiif;  he  was  a  Tartar 
And  not  at  all  disposed  to  prove  a  martyr." 


\(ictur-nc.      (irav  and  SiKcr.      ("liclsca  Kinl)aiikin('iit. 
l.y  .lames  A.  McNeill  Wlil^tlcr. 

In    Ihr    l-rrrr    (•..llrrh,,,i.    -lirlll-   Mil. in    lll-lll;lli,,TI. 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  159 

And  so  the  quarrel  began  and  ran  on  for  forty 
years,  until  the  painter  died,  and  the  British 
public  bought  his  pictures  and  hung  them  in  its 
national  galleries,  and  the  incident  was  declared 
closed.  The  story  is  old  in  art  but  this  one  pos- 
sesses distinctly  modern  variations. 

Whistler  had  probably  begun  the  study  of 
Japanese  art  before  1860,  and  there  is  equal 
probability  that  in  Paris  he  saw  not  the  best 
examples  of  it,  but  only  its  latter-day  manifes- 
tations in  the  color  prints  of  Hokusai,  Utamaro, 
and  Iliroshige.  However  that  may  have  been, 
he  saw  enough  to  change  his  ideas  about  pattern 
and  to  turn  him  half-way  round,  at  least,  from 
the  representative  to  the  decorative.  That  was 
the  beginning  of  the  misunderstanding.  Time  out 
of  mind  artist  and  public  had  been  conscious 
that  painting  possessed  the  dimensions  of  height 
and  breadth,  and,  by  illusion,  was  cai)a])le  of  a 
third  dimension  in  depth  or  thickness.  The  illu- 
sion was  produced  by  variations  of  light,  sliade, 
or  color  which  gave  modelling.  From  long  custom 
a  preference  grew  up  for  figures  modelled  out — a 
depth  by  protrusion  rather  than  by  recession. 
Wlien,  therefore,  \Yhistler  came  to  the  fore 
and  insisted  that  the  third  dimension  was  some- 
tliing  of  a  vulgarity  and  that  figures  should  not 
be  round  and  stand  out  but  be  flat  and  stand  in, 
there  was  instant  disagreement. 

lie  went  furtlier.  Linear  perspective  was  a 
cheap  accomplishment  and  the  delight  in  it  was 


160  AlVIERICAN  PAINTING 

unintelligent.  There  was  infinitely  more  distinc- 
tion in  aerial  perspective  whereby  recession  and 
depth  were  produced  by  a  degradation  of  values. 
Aerial  perspective  was,  in  fact,  the  only  per- 
spective worth  w^hile.  There  should  not  be  too 
much  depth.  The  pattern  should  be  kept  flat  and 
the  picture  should  not  "break  through  the  wall" 
but  be  a  part  of  it.  Moreover,  contrast  of  color 
was  less  decorative,  less  charming,  than  accord. 
A  picture  should  be  pitched  in  a  certain  tonal 
key  and  maintain  the  tone  throughout.  The 
minor  chords  were  more  refined  than  those  of 
higher  pitch  and  greater  resonan^ce;  a  twilight 
or  a  midnight  was  more  lovely  than  "a  foolish 
sunset."  Finally  the  picture  was  finished  when  its 
decorative  pattern  was  complete.  The  whole 
meaning  of  the  picture  was  in  its  look.  It  should 
make  no  other  appeal.  Piety,  patriotism,  senti- 
ment, emotion,  story  were  all  barred  out  as 
beside  the  mark — foreign  to  the  medium. 

All  this  TMiistler  said  in  his  pictures  and  it 
irritated  him  that  the  public  would  not  recog- 
nize his  point  of  view,  but  chose  instead  to  judge 
his  work  by  the  standards  of  a  Leighton  and  a 
Millais.  By  way  of  supplement  he  sought  to 
explain  with  tongue  and  pen,  but  he  used  too 
many  metaphors,  paradoxes,  and  sophisms,  with 
the  result  that  the  audience  was  more  mystified 
than  ever.  He  achieved  a  reputation  for  insin- 
cerity; was  derided  as  a  coxcomb,  a  mounte- 
bank, an  impostor,  a  charlatan.  Finally  it  was 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  161 

discovered  that  some  of  the  things  he  said  were 
sharp-pointed,  that  he  was  a  wit,  a  dandy,  a 
gay  fellow.  And  they  laughed.  They  would  not 
take  either  his  word  or  his  art  seriously.  It 
was  admitted,  with  some  complacency,  that  he 
was  a  good  etcher,  but  as  a  painter  he  had  not 
fulfilled  expectations.  The  prophet  had  arrived 
ahead  of  his  time. 
The  Japanese  influence — the  most  potent  of  all 
in  \Miistler's  art — ^began  to  show  itself  gradually 
and  did  not  come  out  entirely  in  the  open  until 
such  pictures  as  the  "Lange  Leizen,"  *'The 
Gold  Screen,"  "The  Balcony,"  and  the  "Prin- 
cesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine"  appeared.  With 
them  not  only  the  flat  pattern  but  Tokio  porce- 
lains, fans,  screens,  robes  were  shown.  There 
was  some  incongruity  in  the  appearances,  which 
WTiistler  did  not  seek  to  conceal.  The  figure  in 
the  "Lange  Leizen"  is  English,  sits  on  a  chair 
like  an  English  model,  and  is  in  an  English 
interior;  but  Japanese  costume  and  blue-and- 
white  pots  and  jars  are  introduced.  AMiistler 
regarded  it  as  a  color  scheme  and  called  it  "An 
Arrangement  in  Purple  and  Rose,"  but  his 
audience  saw  only  the  incongruity.  "The  Bal- 
cony" again  was  mystifying.  There  were  four 
figures  in  Japanese  robes  on  an  iron-railed  plat- 
form with  an  outlook  on  the  Thames.  There 
were  bamboo  screens  and  i)ottcd  azaleas  and 
blue-and-white  tea  things.  Again  there  was 
tlie    impossible — Japan    set    down    in    London. 


162  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

The  subtitle,  "A  Harmony  in  Flesh  Color  and 
Green,"  explained  nothing.  The  picture  was 
judged  by  its  meaning,  not  by  its  appearance, 
and,  of  course,  it  meant  nothing  in  an  English 
sense. 

The  "Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine" 
was  even  more  startling.  Every  one  knew  it 
was  a  young  Greek  girl  who  posed  as  the  Prin- 
cesse,  and  the  masquerade  of  Japanese  robe  and 
rug  and  screen  and  fan  was  only  a  pretense. 
The  subtitle  of  "Rose  and  Silver"  again  did 
not  enlighten.  What  was  wanted  was  the  com- 
mon sense  of  it  and  not  the  harmony  or  the  ar- 
rangement. But  it  had  no  common  sense;  it 
was  merely  a  fantasy  in  color.  Persistently  they 
looked  for  the  wrong  thing  and  would  not  see 
what  the  painter  wished  them  to  see.  It  was  just 
so  with  "The  Little  WTiite  Girl" — a  beautiful 
symphony  in  white  showing  a  young  girl  in 
muslin  leaning  against  a  white  mantel  with  her 
face  reflected  in  a  mirror.  It  was  Japanese  only 
in  the  fan,  the  flowers,  and  the  vase,  but  the 
arrangement  was  too  flat  for  public  appreciation, 
and  the  girl  was  declared  the  "most  bizarre  of 
bipeds." 

All  through  the  sixties  this  misapprehension  of 
purpose  and  aim  persisted,  and  toward  1870 
another  riddle  was  presented  with  the  appear- 
ance of  the  nocturnes.  They  were  things  done 
along  the  Thames  at  dusk  and  were  revelations 
of  that  blue-air  envelope  which  forms  when  the 


"The  I'riiiccssc  (In   l*;i\s  dc  la   I'oi'cclaiiic.""  I)V  .lames  A. 
McN.-ill  Whisll.T. 


In   Ihr   li,,.,   (■ 


III   hi-litiilxiri 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  163 

shadow  of  the  world  begins  to  creep  up  the 
Eastern  sky.  The  idea  had  perhaps  been  sug- 
gested to  Whistler  in  the  color  prints  of  Hiro- 
shige  and  he  had  afterward  found  its  reality  in 
English  twilights.  Such  a  motive  was  quite  the 
opposite  of  Turner's  blazing  sunset  upon  which 
the  generations  had  been  reared.  Everything  was 
muffled,  vague  in  outline,  half  seen  as  to  place. 
Much  was  left  to  the  imagination,  and  as  for 
the  composition,  it  was  arranged  with  the  great- 
est simplicity.  Indeed,  it  was  so  simple  that  peo- 
ple thought  it  must  be  foolish  and  said  so  with- 
out hesitation. 

Again  the  subtitles  of  "Blue  and  Gold"  and 
" Black  and  Gold"  carried  no  meaning.  Even  the 
experienced  Ruskin  could  see  nothing  in  the 
later  "Falling  Rocket"  but  "a  coxcomb  flinging 
a  pot  of  paint  in  the  public's  face."  It  was  "cock- 
ney impudence"  and  "wilful  imposture."  That 
was  more  than  AMiistler  could  stand,  and  he  be- 
gan a  libel  suit  against  Ruskin  in  the  course  of 
which  the  Attorney-General  of  England  said  he 
"did  not  know  when  so  much  amusement  had 
been  afi^orded  the  British  public  as  by  Mr.  Whis- 
tler's pictures."  The  trial  was  a  farce  and  the 
laugh  went  against  Wliistler.  But  he  laughs  best 
who  laughs  last,  and  it  has  not  been  the  British 
public  that  has  done  the  latest  laughing. 

There  had  been  merriment  before  that,  and — 
incredible  as  it  may  seem — over  Whistler's  now 
celebrated  portrait  of  his  mother.  It  was  ad- 


164  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

mitted  to  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  of 
1872  only  after  a  well-known  academician  had 
threatened  to  resign  if  it  were  rejected.  It  was 
not  wanted,  but  having  been  received,  it  was 
treated  as  a  joke.  London  revised  its  opinion 
about  the  portrait  later  on.  After  the  French 
Government  bought  it  for  the  Luxembourg  it  was 
thought,  even  by  the  hosts  of  Philistia,  to  be 
Whistler's  best  effort,  and  there  was  much  talk 
of  its  refined  motherly  spirit  and  decent  air — 
praises  that  the  painter  resented,  telling  the 
public  that  the  sitter  was  no  affair  of  theirs  and 
that  their  only  interest  should  be  in  "the  ar- 
rangement in  gray  and  black." 
The  portrait  of  Carlyle  followed,  and  was  not 
unHke  the  mother  portrait  in  its  color  scheme 
and  pattern.  Nothing  was  round  in  modelling, 
or  projected,  or  stood  out  in  the  canvas.  The 
wall,  the  chair,  the  figure,  even  the  head,  were 
flattened,  and  to  that  extent  rendered  incompre- 
hensible to  the  general.  The  ponderous  Times 
proclaimed  that  "before  such  pictures  .  .  .  critic 
and  spectator  are  alike  puzzled.  Criticism  and 
admiration  seem  alike  impossible,  and  the  mind 
vacillates  between  a  feeling  that  the  artist  is 
playing  a  practical  joke  upon  the  spectator  or 
that  the  painter  is  suffering  from  some  peculiar 
optical  illusion."  Eventually  the  Carlyle  won  its 
way,  and  is  now  one  of  the  treasures  of  the  Glas- 
gow Corporation  Art  Gallery.  But  for  years  no 
one  would  touch  it  with  a  pair  of  tongs. 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WTOSTLER  165 

Both  the  Carlyle  and  the  mother  portraits  had 
their  prototypes  in  the  groups  of  Frans  Hals  at 
Haarlem.  TOiistler  much  admired  Ilals's  late 
portraits  of  Women  Regents  there,  and  found  in 
them  his  "arrangement  in  gray  and  black."  But 
about  the  same  time  with  the  Carlyle  he  painted 
a  portrait  of  Miss  Alexander,  the  like  of  whicli 
had  never  before  been  seen.  It  was  the  portrait  of 
a  little  girl,  hat  in  hand,  standing  at  full  length  in 
a  room,  with  daisies  at  the  side  and  butterflies 
at  the  back.  The  title  of  it  was  a  "Harmony  in 
Gray  and  Green."  The  pattern  was  beautiful, 
the  color  delightful,  the  pose  childlike,  and  even 
realistic.  But  London  would  not  have  it.  It  was 
" gruesomeness  in  gray,"  "a  rhapsody  in  raw 
child  and  cobwebs,"  "a  disagreeable  present- 
ment," and  "uncompromisingly  vulgar."  Not 
even  in  the  turbulent  times  of  Delacroix  and 
"the  drunken  broom"  had  criticism  so  cheap- 
ened its  array  and  shot  so  wide  of  the  mark. 

In  spite  of  abuse  AYhistler  continued  producing 
portraits — one  of  Leyland  in  evening  dress 
standing  at  full  length,  an  "arrangement  in 
black";  one  of  Mrs.  Leyland,  never  entirely 
completed,  a  very  beautiful  "symphony  in  flesli 
color  and  pink"  ;  one  of  Mrs.  Huth  in  black 
velvet,  another  "arrangement  in  black."  They 
were  all  realistic  enough  as  regards  the  likeness 
but  decoratively  arranged  as  regards  pattern 
and  color.  They  were,  once  more,  the  blended 
view  of  the  West  and  the  East,  and  \Miistler 


166  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

never  tried  to  disguise  the  fact.  He  sought  to 
place  the  figure  in  the  canvas  as  far  as  he  stood 
from  the  sitter  when  painting  the  picture,  but 
otherwise  he  adhered  to  the  flattening  of  the 
pattern,  the  simpHcity  of  the  arrangement,  and 
the  predominance  of  a  tone  of  color. 

In  1876  Whistler  was  given  carte  blanche  to  pro- 
duce one  of  his  tone  effects  in  a  room  at  the  Ley- 
land  house.  This  afterward  became  known  as  the 
Peacock  Room.  It  held  the  picture  of  the  "Prin- 
cesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine"  at  one  end,  was 
decorated  elsewhere  with  peacocks,  furnished 
with  cabinets  of  blue-and-white  china,  and  set 
off  with  blue  and  gold  in  the  walls  and  ceiling. 
The  idea  of  the  peacocks  had  probably  colne  to 
Whistler  from  some  Japanese  master,  perhaps 
Okio,  and  the  rest  of  it  was  his  own  arrangement 
of  color.  The  next  year  was  that  of  the  suit 
against  Ruskin.  London  laughed  and  WTiistler 
shortly  thereafter  w^ent  into  bankruptcy.  Every- 
thing was  seized  and  sold,  bringing  little  or  noth- 
ing. The  tide  was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  and  the 
painter  was  left  stranded,  but  by  no  means  dead 
or  even  moribund. 

^Mien  he  had  sufficiently  recuperated  he  went 
off  to  Venice,  where  he  gathered  a  little  coterie 
of  admirers  about  him  who  referred  to  him  as 
*'the  master,"  and  where  he  talked  much,  and 
did  some  etchings  and  some  pastels  on  colored 
paper.  The  first  series  of  Venetian  etchings, 
twelve  In  number,  were  done  in  the  summer  of 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  1C7 

1880,  and  possibly  he  never  went  beyond 
such  plates  as  "The  Rialto,"  "The  Bridge,"  and 
"The  Traghetto."  They  seem  the  most  flawless 
of  his  etched  work.  As  for  the  pastels,  they  were 
largely  notes  of  color,  line,  or  movement,  and 
while  charming  as  notes,  they  were  not  impecca- 
ble in  drawing.  They  were  never  intended  to  be 
realistic  in  any  modern  sense;  they  were,  in  fact, 
mere  flying  autumn  leaves  that  meant  nothing 
aside  from  form  and  color  and  their  airy  light- 
ness. 

In  November  Whistler  returned  to  London, 
and  the  sniping  and  sharpshooting  began  again. 
It  was  temporarily  interrupted  by  the  death  of 
his  mother  in  January,  but  soon  broke  out  anew. 
Portraits  were  being  painted — that  of  Duret  in 
evening  clothes  with  a  domino  on  his  arm,  and 
one  of  Lady  Archibald  Campbell,  called  "The 
Yellow  Buskin,"  an  "arrangement  in  black," 
being  the  most  notable.  "The  Yellow  Buskin," 
now  in  the  Fairmount  Park  Gallery,  Philadel- 
phia, appeals  to  many  people  as  perhaps  AMiis- 
tler's  most  spirited  and  effective  portrait,  but 
'  London  criticism  viewed  it  lightly.  Tlie  Morn- 
ing Advertiser  said  "its  obvious  affectations 
render  the  work  displeasing,"  and  another  critic 
stated  that  "he  has  placed  one  of  his  portraits 
on  an  asphalt  floor  and  against  a  coal-black 
background,  the  whole  apparently  representing 
a  dressy  woman  in  an  infei-no  of  the  worldly." 
The  public  was  equall}"  unconvinced.  So  in  188  i 


168  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Whistler  mounted  the  platform  at  Princes  Hall 
and  in  his  Ten  O'Clock  set  forth  not  only  his 
philosophy  of  art  but  his  scorn  and  contempt  for 
almost  everybody  and  everything  excepting  art 
and  artists.  The  lecture  created  a  stir,  was  re- 
peated at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  Whistler 
became  famous  as  one  who  could  write  even  if 
he  could  not  paint.  Oddly  enough,  his  lecture 
seemed  to  command  more  respect  than  his  pic- 
tures, though  it  had  not  a  tithe  of  their  sincerity. 

At  any  rate,  the  painter's  fortunes  now  began 
to  mend.  He  joined  the  Society  of  British  Art- 
ists, and  two  years  later  became  its  president. 
In  1888  he  was  married  to  Beatrix  Godwin, 
widow  of  E.  B.  Godwin,  the  architect,  afterward 
moving  to  No.  21  Cheyne  Walk,  where  many 
orders  for  portraits  came  to  him.  Success  and 
honors  came  also.  France  gave  him  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  Bavaria  made  him  an  academician, 
he  had  the  Cross  of  St.  Michael,  and  later  on 
Glasgow  University  gave  him  an  LL.D.  His 
pictures  at  auction  increased  in  price  five  and 
ten  fold;  his  commission  prices  were  in  propor- 
tion. He  grew  so  affluent  that  he  could  even  de- 
cline to  paint  a  ceiling  for  the  Boston  Public 
Library.  At  last  the  light  was  beginning  to 
dawn — a  trifle  late,  to  be  sure,  but  nevertheless 
it  was  welcomed  by  the  painter. 

The  rest  is  soon  told.  In  1892  he  moved  to  Paris 
and  lived  in  the  rue  du  Bac.  A  studio  was  opened 
for  pupils  In  Paris  at  which  he  agreed  to  give 


••Tlic  ^.-llow   Buskin. ■■  1)V  Jnnics  A.   McNeil 
Wliistl.T. 

ll,    111,'   W     r.    \VlUl;.rh   Collr,!!,.!!.    l':,inn,iMn!    I'ark    Call, TV 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  AVHISTLER  169 

lessons.  It  was  popular  at  first,  but  did  not  last 
long.  He  travelled  back  and  forth  to  London  a 
good  deal,  and  finally  returned  to  England  to 
live.  Quarrels  had  followed  him  to  Paris  and  the 
Eden  trial  had  taken  place  there.  It  was  un- 
fortunate. Trilby  had  been  written  and  \MiIstler 
was  parodied  in  It,  which  caused  another  tempest 
in  a  teapot.  Then  Mrs.  WTiIstler  died,  and  that 
was  not  only  a  great  shock  but  a  lasting  grief. 
He  never  quite  got  over  it.  He  wandered  to 
Paris  and  Rome,  but  he  cared  little  for  them; 
he  kept  at  work  with  feverish  energy,  but  he 
accomplished  little.  He  was  evidently  broken, 
not  only  in  spirit  but  In  body;  and  his  death 
in  July,  1903,  was  hardly  a  surprise  to  his  more 
Intimate  friends.  The  overstrung  bow  at  last 
had  snapped. 

For  many  years  Whistler  had  been  wrongly 
estimated  alike  by  friend  and  foe.  That  one  ad- 
mired and  the  other  condemned  did  not  change 
the  measure  of  extravagance.  There  was  exagger- 
ation on  both  sides.  Since  his  death  his  critics 
have  held  their  tongues,  but  many  of  his  ad- 
mirers have  burst  Into  print  with  impressions 
and  reminiscences  that  are  quite  out  of  pro- 
portion and  give  a  misleading  idea  of  the  man 
and  the  painter.  The  best  account  of  him  is 
that  of  the  Pennells.  They  were  devoted  to  him 
and  wrote  enthusiastically  about  him,  as  they 
should;  but  they  did  not  fail  to  give  the  pros  and 
cons  in  parallel  columns.  Moreover,  they  did  not 


170  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

make  him  out  a  jester  with  cap  and  bells,  a  po- 
seur, a  wit,  and  a  fop,  but  a  very  sincere  and  seri- 
ous artist  stung  to  resentment  by  the  stupidity 
and  studied  insults  of  a  perverse  generation.  That 
is  precisely  the  right  point  of  view,  but  unfortu- 
nately the  Pennells  are  about  the  only  ones  who 
have  consistently  held  it.  The  other  accounts, 
for  the  most  part,  deal  with  his  personal  appear- 
ance, his  witticisms,  his  eccentricities,  his  quar- 
rels, and  let  his  art  go  with  a  few  rhapsodic 
generalities. 
As  for  the  descriptions  of  Whistler's  personal- 
ity, they  give  a  false  impression  by  undue  em- 
phasis on  certain  appearances.  My  acquaintance 
with  him  was  after  1890,  though  I  had  met  him 
some  years  before.  At  no  time  was  I  impressed 
with  his  "flashing"  eye,  or  his  "claw-like" 
hands,  or  his  "white  lock,"  or  his  "dandified" 
costume.  They  were  not  marked  features  unless 
one  were  looking  for  them.  He  was  slightly 
built,  refined-looking,  and  carried  himself  well, 
even  gracefully.  The  Chase  portrait  of  him  is 
so  foolish  that  even  Chase  could  not  show  it 
without  apologies  and  explanations;  and  as  for 
the  Boldini  portrait,  it  is  thoroughly  Mephisto- 
phelian.  About  the  latter,  Whistler  said:  "They 
say  that  looks  like  me;  but  I  hope  I  don't  look 
like  that."  The  portrait  is  a  t;yT)ical  Boldini, 
with  all  that  that  implies  of  vulgarity  and  in- 
sinuation. But  Whistler  looked  like  a  gentleman, 
not  like  a  houlevardier. 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WfflSTLER  171 

His  manner  was  courteous  and  his  disposition 
usually  good-natured.  I  never  saw  anything  of 
his  waspishness,  nor  heard  any  of  his  vitriolic 
retorts.  He  talked  soberly  and  very  sensibly  un- 
less aroused  or  driven  into  a  corner  by  argument. 
Then  he  would  fight  back  viciously  enough  and 
with  excellent  wit.  From  some  quick  answers 
to  foolish  people  he  finally  became  known  for 
repartee  and  his  name  was  used  as  a  peg  upon 
which  many  sharp  sayings  were  hung,  and  he 
quite  innocent  of  them.  The  only  bright  retort 
from  him  that  I  ever  heard  was  made  at  my 
own  expense.  I  recount  it  as  illustrative  of  his 
brightness. 

One  night  at  the  Pennells',  Whistler  had  been 
grumbling  in  an  amusing  way  over  art  criticism 
and  art  critics.  No  one  answered  him.  He  had  the 
floor  entirely  to  himself  and  the  rest  of  us  were 
content  to  smile.  Near  eleven  o'clock,  as  I  rose 
to  go,  and  Wliistler  and  Pennell  went  with  me  to 
the  door,  I  ventured  to  say  that  art  critics  were 
not  very  different  from  other  people,  that  they 
did  the  best  they  could,  but  were  human  and 
often  erred.  It  was  good-natured  deprecation  of 
his  point  of  view,  which  he  met  by  putting  his 
hand  on  my  shoulder  and  saying  with  equal 
good  nature: 

"Oh,  my  dear  Van  Dyke,  don't  misunder- 
stand. We  none  of  us  think  of  you  as  an  art 
critic."  Everybody  laughed,  myself  included. 
There  was  not  a  particle  of  venom  in  it.  I  had 


172  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

written  about  him  in  praise  in  the  early  eigh- 
ties when  others  were  abusing  him  and  he  had 
thanked  me  for  it;  I  was  in  his  good  books.  To 
be  sure,  the  retort  was  hardly  new.  John  Brough- 
am had  launched  it  at  Lester  Wallack  many 
years  before.  But  the  cleverness  of  it  lay  in  its 
application. 

Whistler  liked  to  talk,  especially  if  there  was  an 
audience  of  half  a  dozen.  He  was  then  very 
willing  to  fill  space  in  the  spot-light  and  conduct 
the  session,  especially  if  art  was  up  for  discussion. 
Another  night,  at  a  Pennell  dinner,  a  very  clever 
man — one  of  the  editors  of  the  Daily  Telegraph 
— was  present.  He  had  recently  returned  from 
the  far  North — ^beyond  Spitzbergen — and  had 
been  telling  us  about  the  brilliancy  of  the  North- 
ern color.  \Miistler,  beside  whom  I  sat,  was  not 
interested  and  kept  tugging  at  my  arm,  telling 
me  that  it  was  mere  raw  color  and  not  art. 
To  that  I  finally  had  to  make  reply  that  I  cared 
not  a  rap  whether  the  color  was  artistic  or  not, 
that  I  was  interested  in  the  mere  fact  of  its  bril- 
liancy. With  that  he  flung  around  in  his  chair, 
turning  his  back  on  me,  much  as  a  child  might  do, 
and  remained  silent  until  the  subject  changed. 

But  it  is  an  error  to  infer  that  because  he  was 
often  witty  and  occasionally  petty,  wit  and 
pettishness  were  his  outstanding  characteristics. 
By  setting  forth  unrelieved  chapters  of  his 
stories  and  sayings  the  impression  has  been 
produced  that  he  started  a  new  quarrel  each 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER         173 

morning  before  breakfast  and  shot  envenomed 
shafts  until  sunset.  That  his  witticisms  were 
scattered  over  a  period  of  forty  years  is  neither 
stated  nor  impHed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was 
almost  always  in  a  serious  mood,  and,  with  his 
knowledge  and  gift  of  language,  talked  most 
sensibly  and  persuasively.  I  remember  many 
interesting  and  informing  talks  with  him  when 
there  was  no  jesting  and  not  even  smiling.  In 
his  own  studio,  with  his  own  pictures  on  the  easel 
and  he  explaining  his  intention  and  its  develop- 
ment on  the  canvas,  he  was  at  his  best.  He  was 
then  a  reasonable,  sensible  painter,  with  none 
of  the  pose  of  the  Ten  O'Clock  and  none  of 
the  vanity  of  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies. 
I  have  never  met  a  more  striking  contradiction 
in  an  individual,  and  it  always  seemed  to  me  that 
the  Whistler  of  the  sharp  tongue  and  pen  was 
not  the  true  \Miistler  but  merely  a  character 
assumed  for  the  occasion. 

His  published  writings,  as  one  reads  them  to- 
day, are  extravagantly  brilliant,  but  hardly 
sincere,  even  from  a  \Miistlerian  point  of  view. 
Take  from  the  Ten  0' Clock,  for  instance,  the  oft- 
quoted  sentence:  "There  never  was  an  artistic 
period,  there  never  was  an  art-loving  nation." 
A  measure  of  truth  lies  under  that,  but  Whistler 
knew  that  he  exaggerated  it,  overstated  it.  Again 
the  statement  that  "Art  happens — no  hovel  is 
safe  from  it,  no  prince  may  depend  upon  it, 
the  vastest  intelligence  cannot  bring  it  about,  and 


174  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

puny  efforts  to  make  it  universal  end  in  quaint 
comedy  and  coarse  farce."  Here  is  another  half- 
truth,  but  so  arbitrarily  insisted  upon  that  one 
infers  that  art  is  really  an  isolated  and  unre- 
lated phenomenon  on  the  earth.  Whistler  knew 
better  than  that.  Nothing  "happens"  in  this 
world.  There  is  a  cause  for  every  effect.  Once 
more  the  remark  about  "the  unlimited  ad- 
miration daily  produced  by  a  very  foolish  sun- 
set." But  he  himself  never  was  so  foolish  as  to 
believe  such  nonsense.  It  was  merely  a  rococo 
way  of  saying  that  art  could  not  handle  a  sun- 
set in  a  satisfactory  manner,  and  that  his  art, 
in  particular,  preferred  a  twilight  or  a  midnight. 
The  Ten  O'Clock  indeed  explains  Wliistler's  art 
better  than  any  other,  and,  of  course,  that  was 
why  it  was  written.  His  own  limitations  and 
necessities  could  not  have  been  better  set  forth 
than  by  the  sentence:  "Nature  is  very  rarely 
right;  to  such  an  extent  even,  that  it  might  al- 
most be  said  that  nature  is  usually  wrong." 
He  wanted  to  put  a  conventionalized  nature 
into  a  decorative  pattern,  and  he  justified  it 
by  saying  that  a  realistic  nature  is  "usually 
wrong."  It  is  somewhat  of  a  piece  with  his  re- 
mark that  "there  are  too  many  trees  in  the 
country."  There  were — for  Whistler's  art. 

But  it  is  useless  to  point  out  the  superficial  in 
the  AMiistler  arguments — the  falseness  of  anal- 
ogy, for  instance,  in  comparing  national  art 
with  national  mathematics.  That  statement  was 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WfflSTLER  175 

made  to  produce  a  laugh,  and  it  succeeded.  It 
is  even  stupid  to  point  out  the  want  of  logic  or 
historical  truth  in  the  Ten  0' Clock.  One  might 
as  well  try  to  break  Whistler's  own  butterfly 
on  a  wheel.  The  lecture  was  written  and  de- 
livered to  astonish  the  natives.  And  it  did. 
It  was  a  charming  bit  of  extravagance,  beauti- 
fully written  for  platform  delivery,  and  a  de- 
lightful piece  of  literature  for  fireside  reading. 
Had  it  been  logical,  temperate,  well-guarded  in 
its  utterances,  it  would  have  fallen  flat.  It  fitted 
the  occasion,  was  a  w^ork  of  art  in  itself,  and  no 
more  "happened"  than  Whistler's  pictures  and 
etchings. 

That  he  wrote  extremely  well  makes  it  all  the 
more  unfortunate  that  he  wrote  at  all.  The  let- 
ters of  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies  are 
amusing,  but  leave  an  impression  of  flippancy 
and  mere  cleverness.  These  were  qualities  rightly 
enough  used  in  a  rough-and-tumble  newspaper 
quarrel,  but  the  reader  does  not  leave  them 
there.  Unwittingly  he  looks  for  the  same  quali- 
ties in  "^Miistler's  portraits  and  pastels,  perhaps 
reads  them  into  the  art  itself.  Worse  yet,  he 
possibly  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the  art 
is  of  less  interest  than  the  quarrels,  of  less  mo- 
ment than  the  passing  gibe  of  the  "foolish  sun- 
set," or  the  casual  irrelevance  of  "dragging  in 
Velasquez."  Once  more,  it  is  a  pity  that  \Miistler 
the  painter  has  to  be  confused  with  \Miistler 
the  critic-baiter.  However  well  one  comes  out 


176  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

of  a  fight,  it  is  generally  with  rumpled  plumage 
and  a  lack  of  dignity.  Whistler  could  well  have 
afforded  to  go  his  way  in  silence.  WTiy  did  he 
have  to  kick  at  every  cur  that  barked  at  his 
heels  ?  Degas  said  he  acted  as  though  he  had  no 
talent,  and  Degas  was  right. 

After  these  books  of  bickerings  one  comes  back 
to  Whistler's  pictures  with  relief,  for  they  at  least 
are  serious.  That  is  not,  however,  to  say  that 
they  are  the  greatest  this,  or  the  most  wonderful 
that,  in  all  painting.  They  are  far  from  being 
impeccable,  but  they  are  not  the  wherewithal 
to  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer.  No  com- 
petent person  now^adays  thinks  them  other 
than  very  sincere  art.  His  brothers  of  the  craft 
have,  indeed,  so  elevated  them  and  him,  so 
pedestalled  and  niched  them  both,  that  it  is  very 
doubtful  if  they  can  long  hold  out  in  their  rare- 
fied atmosphere.  Again  and  again  has  the  world 
been  told  that  he  was  a  faultless  draftsman, 
that  his  brush  was  equal  to  that  of  Velasquez, 
and  that  his  needle  outdid  Rembrandt.  He  did 
not  believe  so  himself,  nor,  soberly  considered, 
does  his  art  affirm  it. 

The  Pennell  book  contains  photographs  of  a 
number  of  pictures  labelled  "destroyed,"  and 
there  were  scores  of  canvases  that  never  got  so 
far  as  even  to  be  photographed.  Many  of  the 
pictures  that  escaped  destruction  are  faulty  in 
drawing,  lacking  in  construction,  out  of  pro- 
portion, or  smitten  with  stiffness  in  the  joints. 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WTOSTLER  177 

Connie  Gilchrist  on  the  stage  skipped  the  rope 
delightfully,  but  in  Whistler's  portrait  called 
"The  Gold  Girl"  she  is  petrified.  The  "Sara- 
sate"  seems  pinched  in  scale,  the  "Irving  as 
Philip"  is  unbelievable  in  construction,  the 
"Leyland"  legs  had  to  be  redrawn  from  a 
model.  Whistler  glorified  the  people  of  Velas- 
quez because  "they  stand  upon  their  legs." 
In  his  studio,  showing  his  own  portraits,  his 
first  question  about  each  figure  was:  "How 
does  it  stand  ?"  And  then:  "Does  it  stand  easily, 
stand  firm,  stand  in  ?  Is  it  placed  right  on  the 
canvas,  has  it  enough  body,  enough  atmospheric 
setting.'^"  These  were  questions  that  had  to 
do  with  realistic  or  representative  appearance. 
Again  and  again  he  rubbed  out  the  whole  day's 
work  or  destroyed  the  picture  entirely.  And  he 
could  write  of  himself  to  his  printer  in  the  sever- 
est terms,  thus:  "No,  my  drawing  or  sketch  or 
whatever  you  choose,  is  damnable  and  no  more 
like  the  superb  original  than  if  it  had  been  done 
by  the  worst  and  most  incompetent  enemy.  .  .  . 
There  must  be  no  record  of  this  abomination." 

This,  in  measure,  is  the  experience  of  every 
artist.  He  produces  with  difficulty  and  has 
scores  of  failures.  It  was  not  to  Whistler's  dis- 
credit that  he  was  so  severe  a  judge  of  himself, 
but  perhaps  it  dispels  the  delusion  of  his  being  an 
impeccable  craftsman.  Besides,  there  was  an 
unusual  reason  for  his  lack  of  success  with  many 
pictures.  It  has  been  already  suggested  that  he 


178  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

strove  to  harmonize  the  conflicting  traditions 
of  the  West  and  the  East.  He  was  born  and  bred 
to  the  reaHsm  of  the  third  dimension — to  the 
protrusion  or  recession  in  space  of  planes, 
figures,  Hghts,  and  colors.  Midway  in  his  career 
he  took  up  with  the  decorative  in  Eastern  art 
and  strove  to  show  the  representative  figure  of 
the  French  with  the  flattened  formula  of  the 
Japanese. 

Whistler  was  thus  on  a  seesaw  the  greater 
part  of  his  artistic  life,  trying  to  maintain  a  bal- 
ance between  these  two  formulas.  With  almost 
every  picture  it  was  too  much  realism  or  too 
much  decoration.  To  make  the  union  more  per- 
fect he  began  the  remorseless  cutting  down  of  the 
subject,  reaching  a  limit  in  his  nocturnes  which 
were  finally  reduced  to  little  more  than  night- 
sky  effects.  He  cut  out  modelling  and  outline 
until  the  portrait  of  "Mrs.  Leyland"  became  a 
mere  tonal  scheme,  as  flat  almost  as  the  wall  at 
the  back.  Light,  too,  was  dimmed  and  color 
lost  its  brilliancy  in  a  prevailing  harmony  of 
low  tones.  Finally,  the  brush  which  had  been 
heavily  loaded  in  his  Courbet  days  and  ran 
freely  (as  witness  the  dress  patterns  even  in  the 
later  "Lange  Leizen")  became  thin,  watery, 
absorbent,  almost  diaphanous  in  its  feathery 
imperceptible  touch.  On  top  of  all  this,  and  to 
further  blend  the  representative  into  the  dec- 
orative and  draw  the  picture  together,  there 
occasionally  came  a  thin  wash  of  transparent 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER  179 

gray  or  brown,  covering  the  whole  canvas  and 
binding  the  drawing,  the  Hght,  the  color  into  one 
tonal  envelope.  In  the  final  analysis,  the  canvas 
was  rightly  enough  called  an  arrangement,  a 
harmony,  a  symphony,  a  nocturne — ^what  you 
will.  Anything  else  was  merely  suggestion. 

The  etchings  were  not  so  amenable  to  Jap- 
anese pattern  as  the  paintings,  water-colors, 
and  pastels,  yet  even  in  them  there  was  the  dis- 
position, not  so  much  toward  flattening  the 
planes  as  eliminating  details,  making  suggestion 
answer  for  realization,  and,  later  on,  the  further 
attempt  to  produce  a  tone  effect  by  small 
scratchings  and  hatchings  on  the  plate.  The 
inclination  is  perhaps  better  shown  in  his  litho- 
tints,  such  as  that  of  "The  Thames"  (Lithotint 
W.  125),  than  in  the  etchings. 

The  decorative  arrangement  was  his  view 
of  what  art  should  be  and  was  more  or  less  mani- 
fested in  everything  he  did.  Even  the  Ten 
O'clock  is  more  decorative  than  realistic.  The 
arrangement  of  the  sentences  and  paragraphs  is 
charming,  and  whether  they  mean  anything  or 
not  is  of  small  importance.  Of  course  \Miistler 
would  have  objected  to  being  thus  hung  by  his 
own  rope,  but  he  deliberately  subordinated  the 
sense  of  his  sentences  to  their  rli^'thm  and  tone. 
People  who  write  (even  art  critics)  are  aware  of 
what  constitutes  pattern  and  color  in  words  and 
they  are  well  pleased  that  the  Ten  O'Clock  was 
not  representative  but  just  as  it  is — that  is. 


180  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

decorative  and  delightful.  The  painter  people, 
however,  seem  to  regard  it  as  the  inspired  gos- 
pel of  art  and  every  word  of  it  true.  From  which 
one  may  infer  that  the  artist,  when  outside  of 
his  metier^  can  look  at  the  wrong  thing  with  that 
persistence  sometimes  thought  peculiar  to  the 
unattached  writer. 

In  the  final  analysis  Whistler's  fame  must  rest 
upon  his  pictures,  though  a  certain  amount  of 
notoriety  will  probably  always  be  given  his  say- 
ings and  a  proper  admiration  accompany  his 
writings.  As  a  painter  and  an  etcher  he  has  a 
now-unquestioned  place  and  he  will  hold  it. 
Nothing  in  nineteenth -century  art  is  quite 
of  a  kind  with  his.  It  stands  alone  in  its  aim  and 
purpose,  belongs  to  no  art  movement  of  the 
time,  proclaims  the  ideals  of  no  race  or  peo- 
ple. As  for  the  usual  motives  of  painting, 
WTiistler  scorned  them  or  denied  them.  He 
cared  nothing  about  classicism  or  romanticism, 
nothing  about  sentiment,  feeling,  passion,  or 
action.  The  dramatic,  the  tragic,  the  domestic, 
the  illustrative  were  foreign  to  him.  Even  na- 
ture put  him  out.  The  country  bored  him,  and 
the  sea  was  only  so  much  blue  paint  in  a  pattern. 
He  was  a  maker  of  beautiful  schemes  of  color 
and  line,  with  just  enough  of  human  interest 
about  them  to  lend  a  meaning  and  occasionally 
a  touch  of  intimacy. 

That  seems  like  reducing  his  art  to  a  very  sim- 
ple affair,  but,  on  the  contrary,  within  the  self- 
imposed    limitations   there   was   room   for   the 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL  WHISTLER         181 

greatest  variety.  He  did  portraits,  figures,  genre 
pieces,  sea-pieces,  river- views ;  he  worked  in  oils, 
water-colors,  pastels;  he  etched  many  plates 
that  are  to-day  the  joy  of  connoisseurs,  and  he 
vastly  improved  the  almost  forgotten  art  of  lith- 
ography. The  breadth  of  his  accomplishment 
was  wide  and  the  excellence  of  it  high.  Nothing 
that  he  ever  did  but  has  some  note  of  color,  some 
wave  of  line,  some  fastidious  arrangement  or 
grouping  that  serves  as  a  mark  of  distinction. 
He  did  hundreds  of  pastels  and  water-colors  no 
larger  than  one's  hand,  that  contain  lovely 
figures  and  draperies,  as,  for  example,  the 
''Annabel  Lee";  or  gave  suggestions  of  the 
sea  or  shore  akin  to  "The  Blue  Wave,"  or 
spread  sky  patterns  comparable  to  the  "Batter- 
sea  Bridge."  These  pictures  are  now  widely  scat- 
tered, and  one  does  not  realize  how  truly  dec- 
orative their  planning  until  he  meets  them 
to-day,  hanging  singly  or  in  pairs,  in  some 
drawing-room.  There  they  put  other  modern 
work  out  of  countenance  by  the  way  they  do  not 
"break  through  the  wall"  but  enhance  and  beau- 
tify it.  It  is  household  art  of  a  most  distinguished 
character  in  that  it  goes  in  the  household  and 
takes  its  place  without  quarrelling  with  every- 
thing about  it.  I  have  already  quoted  La 
Farge  to  the  effect  that  in  using  the  word 
"decorative"  he  was  saying  the  best  thing  he 
could  about  a  picture.  Tliere  he  and  ^Milstler 
were  In  perfect  agreement. 
The  deriding  of  ^Milstler  was  not  Indulged  In 


18^  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

by  press  and  public  alone.  The  painter  people — 
the  inspired  ones,  who  by  reason  of  their  calling 
are  the  only  ones  competent  to  judge  of  art — 
stoned  him,  too.  Royal  academicians  dealt  him 
harder  knocks  than  plebeian  critics.  But  he  al- 
ways had  a  following  of  his  o^ti,  and  before  he 
died  the  following  had  grown  into  a  procession. 
Since  his  death  his  influence  has  been  more  far- 
reaching  than  that  of  any  modem.  His  pictures 
were  not  only  adopted,  assimilated,  imitated 
in  England  and  France  but  all  over  Europe. 
Here  in  America  the  exhibitions  still  show  his 
color  schemes  and  arrangements  as  compre- 
hended by  his  admiring  young  converts.  With- 
out taking  on  pupils,  as  Couture  and  Gleyre  had 
done,  he  nevertheless  became  far  more  of  a  chef 
d'Ecole  than  either  of  them.  That  is  what  he 
would  have  called  perhaps  handing  on  the 
tradition.  He  believed  that  he  himself  was  an 
inheritor  and  a  transmitter — one  of  the  links  in 
the  great  art  chain. 
But  it  was  not  the  American  tradition  that 
\Miistler  handed  on.  We  claim  him  as  one  of  us 
because  he  was  bom  here,  but  his  art  does  not 
represent  us  in  any  way.  His  Thames  nocturnes 
are  not  those  of  the  Hudson,  his  portraits  are 
not  of  our  people,  and  his  decorative  patterns 
never  were  seen  in  American  life  or  art.  He 
handed  on  the  blended  traditions  of  Gleyre  and 
Hiroshige,  not  the  legend  of  Copley  and  Stuart 
and  Durand.  That  may  be  matter  for  regret  in 


JAMES  ABBOTT  McXEILL  \NTnSTLER  183 

history  but  it  surely  is  not  to  be  regretted  in  art. 
For  \Miistler  gave  us  a  new  and  a  beautiful 
point  of  view  in  painting.  Realist,  idealist,  im- 
pressionist, cubist,  futurist — none  of  the  terms 
describe  him  or  even  suggest  his  work.  As  an 
artist  he  was  unique,  and  his  art,  instead  of 
reproducing  a  species,  stemmed  out  into  a  new 
variety  of  surpassing  loveliness  and  beauty. 
We  would  not  be  without  it.  We  are  not  sure 
that  its  *'name  and  fame  will  live  forever,"  as 
the  Pennells  put  it,  but  it  will  live. 


VIII 
WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE 


vm 

WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE 

A  DISTRIBUTION  and  pigeonholing  of  our  nine 
American  painters  as  regards  aim  and  tendency 
would  perhaps  place  Inness,  Wyant,  and  Martin 
among  the  most  intelligent  and  sympathetic  of 
the  earlier  men ;  Homer,  La  Farge,  and  Whistler 
the  most  detached  and  self-sufficient  of  the  mid- 
dle men,  and  Chase,  Alexander,  and  Sargent  the 
most  facile  and  best  trained  of  the  younger 
men.  The  last  three  may,  indeed,  stand  as  epit- 
omizing the  art  movement  which  took  form 
and  gave  tongue  in  the  Society  of  American 
Artists. 

That  movement  was  epoch-making.  There  was 
awakening  to  the  fact  that  painting  in  America 
as  a  craft  was  not  technically  understood,  that 
it  was  not  properly  taught — could  not  be  taught 
in  America.  With  that  came  the  departure  for 
Europe  of  many  young  students  and  their  train- 
ing in  the  studios  of  Munich  and  Paris.  Wlien  the 
Society  of  American  Artists  finally  got  under 
way  in  the  early  eighties  its  initial  reason  for 
existence  was  that  its  members  at  least  knew 
how  to  paint.  They  had  been  abroad  and  learned 
the  grammar  of  their  art  and  were  now  returned 
to  show  their  countrymen  the  finished  crafts- 

187 


188  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

man.  Sargent's  influence  was  largely  through  the 
example  of  his  portraits  and  Alexander's  vogue 
was  to  come  a  little  later;  but  Chase  was  the 
one  that  arrived  early  in  the  day,  carried  the 
banner,  and  announced  that  art  had  come  to 
town. 

All  three  of  these  men  grounded  themselves  in 
technical  method  which  seemed  the  necessity  of 
the  hour,  and  all  three  of  them  have  remained  so 
bedded  in  method  that  their  art  has  rarely  risen 
above  it  or  beyond  it.  Chase,  more  radical  than 
the  others,  proclaimed  his  belief  that  method  was 
art  itself  and  that  a  brilliant,  dashing  manner 
took  precedence  over  matter.  He  would  not 
admit  that  art  was  more  than  a  surface  expres- 
sion. His  belief  was,  of  course,  properly  adjusted 
to  his  own  mental  equipment.  He  and  WTiistler, 
with  many  another  artist,  could  cleverly  com- 
pound for  qualities 

"  they  were  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  had  no  mind  to." 

Unconsciously,  no  doubt,  every  one's  tendency 
is  to  regard  his  own  limitations  as  self-imposed 
and  his  work  right  in  kind  if  not  in  degree. 
Perhaps  that  is  what  Chase  meant  in  a  talk  at 
the  National  Arts  Club  some  years  ago  when  he 
said:  "They  say  I  am  conceited.  I  don't  deny 
it.  I  believe  in  myself.  I  do  and  I  must."  As  phi- 
losophy that  may  not  be  very  profound  but  as  a 
working  faith,  paint-brush  in  hand,  it  is  superb. 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  189 

With  such  faith  and  purpose  Chase  produced 
scores  of  pictures  that  showed  his  declared 
point  of  view,  and  trained  hundreds  of  pupils 
not  only  in  his  enthusiasm  but  in  his  own  crisp, 
clean  handling.  He  was  a  painter  from  beginning 
to  end,  and  exemplified  the  aim  and  carry  of  the 
Society  of  American  Artists  better  than  any  one 
artist  of  his  time. 

He  came  out  of  the  near  West,  having  been 
born  in  Williamsburg,  Indiana,  in  1849.  The  vil- 
lage was  a  small  one,  less  than  tw^o  hundred  in- 
habitants when  Chase  was  a  boy,  and  what 
elementary  schooling  he  received  there  may  be 
imagined.  His  parents  were  Indiana  people,  and 
the  home  influence  probably  did  not  incline  him 
to  art.  He  saw  illustrations  in  magazines  and 
books  and  that  put  the  childish  wish  in  his  head 
to  "make  pictures  for  books."  He  drew  with 
colored  pencils,  had  the  little  water-color  cubes 
known  to  all  children,  and  soon  made  a  local 
reputation  among  schoolmates  and  family 
friends  for  drawing  portraits.  At  twelve  his 
parents  moved  to  Indianapolis,  and  at  sixteen  he 
entered  his  father's  shoe-store  as  a  clerk.  The 
biographies  of  painters*  almost  always  afford 
such  incidents  as  these.  They  are  supi)osed  to 
indicate  genius  trying  to  orient  itself,  but  per- 
haps they  are  no  more  than  vacillations  of  the 
youthful   mind.   At   that   time   Chase   had   not 

*  Tlierc  is  an  oxcellont  hiograpliy  of  ( 'has(» — Tlic  Life  and  Art  of  William 
Merrill  Cltat,e,  by  Kiitliariiu;  Motcalf  Ro<.f,  N.-w  York,  l'J17. 


190  AMERICAN  PADmSG 

definitely  decided  upon  art  as  a  career.  At  nine- 
teen he  thougiit  to  be  some  day  a  naval  officer. 
As  a  preliminary'  step  he  enlisted  as  a  sailor  at 
Annapolis,  and  was  assigned  to  the  training-ship 
Port.fmouik.  He  probably  did  not  know  what 
else  to  do  and  it  was  an  adventure  at  least; 
but  he  soon  discovered  that  it  was  also  a  mistake. 
His  father  got  him  out  of  it  and  together  they 
went  back  to  the  family  shc-e-shop  in  Indian  - 
apolis. 
There  was  some  more  experimental  portrait- 
ure, with  members  of  the  household  and  the  fam- 
ily calf  as  models,  and  then  Chase  was  sent  to 
a  local  painter  by  the  name  of  Benjamin  Hayes, 
who  acc-epted  him  as  a  pupil.  Art  definitely 
began  for  him  then  and  there.  He  was  with  Hayes 
several  months — ^long  enough  to  take  a  studio 
and  set  up  as  a  painter  on  his  own  acc-ount.  At 
twenty  he  went  to  Xe-^  York  with  a  letter  to 
J.  O.  Eaton,  whose  pupil  he  became  and  with 
whom  he  remained  for  two  years.  He  seems  to 
have  had  an  early  liking  for  independent  quar- 
ters, for  "^Kile  a  student  in  Xew  York  he  set  up 
another  studio  in  Twenty-third  Street,  After  his 
two  years  with  Eaton  he  onc-e  more  went  back  to 
the  paternal  roof,  then  in  St.  Louis.  Here  he 
c-ccupied  a  studio  with  J.  W.  Pattis^.-n,  and  for  a 
yea.r  painted  pictures,  pHncipally  pictures  of 
still-Iiie.  Then  he  happened  to  see  a  picture  by 
John  M'uivaney,  iir^d  that  gave  him  the  idea  of 

&•-•— i    ci^-.0<iC   iO*    i-.-i'-.'. 


WILUAM   MEEEITT  CHASE  191 

Some  St,  Louis  patrons  advanced  money  to 
him  and  he  went  to  Munich — a  cit^*  at  that  time 
perhaps  more  frequented  by  art  students  than 
Paris.  Duveneck,  Diehnan,  Currier,  Shirlaw 
were  there,  and  Chase  at  once  entered  into  the 
student  life  of  the  city.  He  was  enrolled  in  the 
school  of  the  Munich  Roval  Academv.  with 
Kaulbach  at  its  head.,  and  he  was  also  a  student 
under  Piloty:  but  the  outside  influence  of  Leibl 
was  potent  upon  all  the  Munich  students  at  that 
tinie,  Chase  included.  In  addition  he  studied  to 
his  profit  the  old  masters  in  the  Alte  Pniac-othek, 
especially  Van  IH'ck,  and  was  susceptible  to 
impressions  from  Duvenec-k  and  perhaps  Hab«er- 
mann,  a  German  student  friend.  S«;'me  years 
ago  in  a  Eurc-pean  retr»:«5pec-t:ve  exhibition  I 
was  struck  by  a  Hah^ermarr:  p^r-rtrait  that  was 
practic:aliy  a  duplicate  c-f  Chase's  "Ready  for 
the  Ride/'  but  whether  it  was  Chase  filiiwing 
Haberniann  or  Habemarjz  i:I:v.-izj  Chase.  I 
c-C'uld  not  de'.eniiize. 

TNlth  his  various  acti^'i:ies  Chase  cut  cuite  a 
figure  in  the  student  wori-i  of  Muuich  aid  was 
re::ar<ie^i  as  a  c-;uiiz^  uiaii.  He  wou  o:u:r«e::- 
ti^->.  paiu:ei  Pii::y's  ohiidren.  pair:-!  ••"The 
Turki>h   Page."    the   Duvenovik  p*^  rtrait   calioi 

•The  Suiokrr."'  'The  Jesierd"  'the  Dowager." 
•The   Arpr^-tioe   Bey.-    -The    Brrken   Jug." 


-  : 


Paiiaiua-Paciuo  Exr^rsiuru    a:    Sau   Frarris-::. 


192  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

where  Chase  was  represented  by  a  roomful  of 
pictures,  and  many  people  were  astonished  to 
find  how  very  solidly  and  beautifully  painted 
were  these  early  examples.  They  were,  of  course, 
dark  in  illumination  with  some  bitumen  in  the 
shadows.  It  was  studio  light,  not  plein  air  that 
Munich  taught.  It  took  Chase  a  number  of  years 
to  arrive  at  a  higher  key  of  light,  but  in  other 
matters  of  technique  he  had  become  something 
of  a  master  before  leaving  Munich — so  much  so 
that  he  was  asked  to  remain  as  an  instructor  in 
the  Bavarian  Academy.  He  declined,  however, 
and  in  1877  went  to  Venice,  where  he  joined 
Duveneck  and  Twachtman  and  remained  for 
nearly  a  year. 

Venice  meant  not  a  great  deal  to  Chase.  He 
painted  it,  but  in  the  formal  Munich  manner, 
and  with  little  of  the  local  light  or  color  of  the 
place.  \Miile  there  he  fell  upon  hard  times,  was  in 
financial  straits,  and  became  ill,  possibly  as  the 
result  of  privations.  But  he  continued  painting, 
and,  what  is  more  astonishing,  while  in  dire 
poverty  he  began  collecting  all  sorts  of  artistic 
plunder.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  taste  that 
he  indulged  in  all  his  life.  He  bought  pictures, 
rugs,  brocades,  silks,  brass,  guns,  swords,  jewels, 
rings — anything  that  was  beautifid  or  artistic  in 
design  or  color.  At  different  times  he  had  large 
collections  of  antiquities,  and  was  ever  hunting 
for  more.  At  Venice  he  added  two  monkeys  to 
his  possessions,  and  when  a  few  months  later  he 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  193 

returned  to  New  York  and  took  his  Tenth  Street 
studio  he  had  several  strange  parrots  and  odd 
dogs  as  adjuncts  to  the  place.  The  high  walls  of 
the  big  studio  were  hung  with  bits  of  tapestries, 
old  velvets,  pictures;  the  floor  was  covered  with 
Oriental  rugs;  the  tables  were  littered  with 
clocks,  pistols,  old  books,  brass  bowls;  and  the 
screens  were  draped  with  silks  and  brocades. 
It  was  the  first  "artistic"  studio  in  New  York. 
This  was  in  1877  and  Chase  had  returned  to 
New  York  to  become  a  teacher  in  the  newly 
established  Art  Students  League.  That  w^as  the 
beginning  of  his  long  and  very  useful  career 
as  a  teacher.  The  Art  Students  League  and  the 
Society  of  American  Artists  were  started  about 
the  same  time,  the  Metropolitan  Museum  having 
preceded  them  by  a  few  years.  The  move- 
ment for  art  was  under  way  and  Chase  had 
arrived  at  the  psychological  moment.  Associ- 
ated with  Beckwith,  Blum,  Shirlaw,  and  others 
he  immediately  took  a  positive  interest  in 
current  art  matters.  The  big  studio  became 
the  gathering-place  of  the  young  men,  where 
resolutions  were  passed  and  committees  were  set 
in  motion.  Society  also  found  its  way  there,  for 
Chase  gave  Saturday  receptions  when  the  door 
with  the  vibrating  lyre  on  the  back  of  it  was 
swung  open  by  a  colored  servant  in  fez  and 
gown,  and  pictures  and  antiquities  were  dis- 
played and  talked  about  l)y  the  painter  him- 
self. At  other  times  dinners  and  dances  were 


194  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

given  there,  to  which  came  many  notables.  Peo- 
ple from  the  opera  sang,  Carmencita  danced, 
and  society  people  posed  in  picture-frames  for 
the  characters  of  Titian  and  Van  Dyck.  Chase 
had  a  decided  vogue,  social  as  well  as  artistic, 
almost  from  the  very  start. 

As  a  painter  he  was  taken  seriously  and  re- 
ceived his  meed  of  praise  with  few  dissenting 
voices.  Almost  every  one  in  the  press  and  maga- 
zines hailed  him  as  the  much-needed  person — 
the  man  who  technically  knew  how  to  paint. 
His  pictures  at  no  time  ever  sold  very  well,  but 
that  was  for  the  reason  perhaps  that  they  never 
possessed  an  intimate  human  interest,  not  be- 
cause they  were  indifferently  painted.  On  the 
whole,  though  some  of  the  elders  looked  askance 
at  his  broad  brushing,  or  thought  his  themes 
somewhat  material  and  superficial,  he  had  no 
grievance  of  a  Whistler  kind  against  either 
critic  or  public.  The  art  clubs  elected  him  to 
membership,  he  spent  his  first  summer  after  his 
return  in  a  trip  through  the  Erie  Canal  with 
the  Tile  Club,  in  1880  he  became  a  member  of 
the  Society  of  American  Artists,  and  in  1883 
its  president.  The  same  year  he  had  organized 
and  sent  to  Munich  the  first  group  of  American 
pictures  for  exhibition  there. 

A  curiosity  as  to  how  art  had  been  produced 
by  other  people,  in  other  times  and  countries  as 
well  as  our  own,  was  always  with  Chase.  He  was 
a  great  traveller,  a  great  student  of  art,  a  great 


WILLLVM  MERRITT  CHASE  195 

haunter  of  galleries  and  museums.  In  the  thirty 
or  more  years  that  I  knew  him  I  had  met  him 
at  different  times  in  almost  every  gallery^  of 
Europe.  Only  a  year  or  so  before  the  Great  War 
I  was  working  in  the  Uffizi  one  hot  July  after- 
noon after  every  one  had  left  the  place.  I  had 
been  alone  for  several  hours  when  I  heard  steps 
approaching  me  down  the  long  corridor.  It  was 
late  and  one  of  the  attendants  was  probably 
coming  to  tell  me  it  was  time  to  close.  But  no; 
instead  of  that  I  heard  in  very  good  English : 

"At  it  again,  I  see  !  At  it  again  !" 

I  turned  around  to  find  Chase  standing  there. 
He,  too,  had  stayed  on  in  the  heat  after  the 
crowd  had  gone,  and  had  no  doubt  been  prying 
into  some  Titian  or  questioning  some  Rembrandt 
or  Rubens ! 

For  many  years  he  kept  voyaging  to  Europe 
summer  after  summer.  I  never  chanced  to  cross 
with  him,  but  one  spring,  while  bidding  farewell 
to  some  friends  who  were  sailing,  I  saw  Chase 
jump  out  of  a  cab  and  scramble  up  the  landing- 
stage — the  last  man  to  arrive — and  still  giving 
some  directions  over  his  shoulder  to  his  colored 
man,  who  remained  on  the  dock.  On  every 
steamer  he  sailed  in  he  organized  art,  painted 
the  cabin  or  smoke-room  panels,  sketched  the 
captain,  and  made  a  portrait  of  the  ship's  Ijcauty. 
Arrived  in  Europe,  he  went  to  sec  not  only  ex- 
hil)itions  and  museums  but  brothers  of  tlie 
craft   in   their   studios.    He   spoke   no   Frencli, 


196  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Spanish,  or  Italian,  and  had  only  a  limited 
vocabulary  In  German,  but  that  made  no  dif- 
ference. He  got  on  better  with  Boldini  and 
Alfred  Stevens  in  Paris  using  the  sign  language 
than  with  Whistler  In  London  exchanging  bit- 
ing English.  Everywhere  he  was  welcomed  and 
treated  as  a  man  of  distinction  In  his  profession, 
and  everywhere  he  saw  something  new  and  was 
perhaps  influenced  thereby. 

He  was  eager  to  learn  and  susceptible  to  im- 
pression— so  much  so  that  he  was  said  to  have 
followed  at  different  times  Leibl,  Stevens,  Rico, 
Fortuny,  Whistler;  but  the  things  which  Chase 
followed  were  minor  matters  of  handling  or 
arrangement  and  did  not  affect  his  personal 
point  of  view.  They  were  superficial  fancies 
and  were  soon  merged,  fused,  or  abandoned. 
Some  of  the  old  masters,  Velasquez,  Titian, 
Hals,  Rembrandt,  had  a  stronger  influence 
upon  him,  but  these  men  he  never  tried  to 
follow.  It  was  their  high  artistic  plane  that 
gave  him  Inspiration.  Standing  before  Titian's 
"Young  Englishman"  in  the  Pitti,  his  admira- 
tion for  Its  superb  poise  and  lofty  dignity  was 
unbounded.  It  was  faultless  and  flawless  in- 
tellectually and  technically.  The  left  eye  was 
out  of  drawing,  but  Titian  intended  it  so.  It 
gave  the  face  more  character.  He  never  even 
wanted  to  suspect  that  the  restorer  in  the  clean- 
ing-room was  perhaps  responsible  for  the  bad 
drawing  of  the  eye.  Titian  was  above  criticism. 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  197 

Chase  was  never  mean  in  his  enthusiasms.  He 
loved  whole-heartedly.  Before  Velasquez  at  Ma- 
drid everything  was  just  as  it  should  be.  He  was 
the  greatest  of  them  all — the  master  craftsman 
of  the  craft;  in  the  Louvre  he  protested  that 
no  one  had  ever  equalled  or  approached  such 
still-life  painting  as  that  of  Chardin;  at  Haarlem 
he  was  just  as  unstinted  in  praise  of  Frans  Hals. 
And  he  was  right  about  them  all.  He  was  a  very 
good  judge  of  pictures  and  picked  out  no  ques- 
tionable masters  for  admiration.  Where  he  found 
a  great  masterpiece  in  a  gallery,  there  he  unslung 
his  kit,  sat  down,  and  made  a  copy.  He  at  dif- 
ferent times  produced  very  remarkable  copies  of 
Velasquez,  Hals,  Rembrandt,  Rubens,  Van 
Dyck,  Ribera,  Watteau.  \Miatever  past  art  had 
to  teach.  Chase  was  eager  to  learn.  He  kept  a  re- 
ceptive mind  and  a  live  interest  in  all  phases  of 
painting,  and  had  more  inherent  knowledge  of 
craftsmanship  than  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
The  literary  history  of  art  he  knew  nothing 
about,  and  probably  could  not  have  told  within 
a  Iiundrcd  3'ears  when  Velasquez  or  Hals  was 
born.  Tliat  side  of  art  has  small  interest  for 
artists,  and  for  Chase  it  was  more  or  less  of  a 
blank  space. 

His  summer  trips  to  Europe  began  in  1S81, 
v/hen  he  went  to  Paris  and  Madrid,  making  in 
the  latter  city  a  copy  of  the  "Tapestry  T\  eavers." 
The  next  year  he  was  again  in  Spain  with  Blum 
and  ^vlnton.  At  that  time  Madrid  was  a  crreat 


19S  AMERICA"  PADTrrSG 

place  for  brass,  pictures,  stuffs,  curios,  and  Ctase 
bought  without  stint.  He  needed  materials  for 
still-life  pictures  and,  besides,  the  big  Tenth 
Street  studio  absorbed  no  end  of  furnishings. 
The  summer  of  ISSo  found  him  in  Holland.  h\Tng 
at  Zandvoort  with  Blum,  and  painting  Blum  in 
a  large  garden -picture  called  "The  Tiff."  In 
ISSo  he  went  to  see  Whistler  in  London.  They 
started  out  on  terms  of  mutual  admiration, 
painted  each  other's  portraits,  travelled  in  Hol- 
land together,  but  finally  ended  up  by  quarrel- 
Ling.  The  Whistler  portrait  of  Chase  has  dis- 
appeared, or  at  least  its  whereabouts,  if  it  still 
exists,  is  unknown;  but  the  Chase  portrait  of 
\Miistler  is  extant  and  now  in  the  Metropohtan 
Museum.  Whistler  declared  it  "a  monstrous 
lamp<x)n,"  and  he  was  about  right  in  saying  so. 
It  is  Whistler  the  po-s-cur,  not  the  real  man. 
Certain  ec-c-entricities  or  personal  peculiarities 
were  S'D  extravagantly  presented  that  the  charac- 
terization bec-ame  little  less  than  caricature. 

In  1SS^3  Chase  was  married  to  Miss  Gerson  and 
fi-r  a  few  years  the  European  trips  were  aban- 
doneii.  He  was  still  teaching  in  the  League, 
was  president  of  the  Sc'ciety  of  .Vmerican  Artists. 
and  was  holding  exhibitions  of  his  work  at  the 
Boston  Art  Club  and  elsewhere.  He  began  doing 
some  open-air  pastels  in  Prosyject  Park,  Brook- 
h-n.  A  ^niall  chb  called  tne  "Painters  in  Pastel" 
La.-j  hoen  organizec  in  Xew  York  v.ith  Blum 
as  nr^-iu-rnt.  and  CLase.  Beckwith.  La  Parse. 


\\TTTT\M   MERRITT  CHASE  190 

Twachtman.  Weir.  Wiles  a^  members.  Chase 
became  interested  in  the  gay  color-possibilities 
of  the  medium  and  proceeded  to  apply  it  to 
park  scenes  with  children,  fio'R'ers.  water,  and 
trees.  Years  before,  .AJfred  Stevens  had  told  him 
that  his  Munich  sch-rii-r  o:  hght  was  too  dark 
and  Chase  immediately  began  to  Hghten  it. 
Perhaps  the  medium  of  pastel  finally  drove  out 
the  last  vestige  of  Munich,  for  certainly  his 
op>en-air  pictures,  without  suggesting  yj:''.iu- 
li<rru:  cjt  impressionism  or  optical  mivt^ire  of 
any  kind,  took  on  ver^'  hght  and  brilliant  color- 
ings. Th-^y  were  charming  expjsitic'ns  of  c-jl^r 
and  -:.:  !ight.  and  were  regarded  at  the  time  as 
s-jmething  of  a  depart'jre. 

Hi?  works  in  oil  measurably  resT:>cindr<i  t  :•  the 
nev%-Iy  disctjvered  brightness  of  his  pastels,  but 
they  were  always  S'l-niewhat  hjwer  i::  kry.  S-izie- 
thiig  of  Munich  n:eii:-i  cluz-  ::•  L:^  Z'.t'.-c:.'.^ 
eveD  into  the  Lin-ti-r^.  Thr  ••LIc-  '-  B'i:k""  a 
portrait  of  Mrs.  Le^lir  C:tt-  in  thr  M-rtr- 
r-..litan  Muscun:  is  an  illu.tratiiz  t:.  ±.  t-int. 

B  th  Chase  and  S^rz-r- :  t  ^iz t^i  CamirL : iti.  the 

thr  Luxciid-  urz  and  Cha^^"^  -  ±.  Mrtr  :•  d- 
tan  Museum.  The  Cda^e  -  :-:^^  v^-.-  ..-d  id^  d- 


iiX>  A\rF.RTC\N  P.\rNTrN'G 

a  new  maimer  or  style.  He  was  always  changmg, 
as  became  a  painter  who  comited  his  education 
as  never  complete  while  he  Hved. 

He  was  widely  known  at  this  time  through 
many  pictures  in  annual  e:shibitions  and  by 
separate  exhibitions  of  his  works,  as,  for  in- 
stance, that  at  Buffalo  in  1S91.  The  Academy  of 
Design  had  overcome  what  prejudices  against 
him  it  may  have  had  and  elected  him  to  member- 
ship, he  had  started  teaching  in  Brookl^Ti,  and 
the  same  year  his  idea  of  a  summer  art  school  at 
Shinnecock.  Long  Island,  came  to  realization.  A 
house  and  studio,  a  class  and  a  cottage  colony 
were  all  started  and  completed  out  there  in  the 
sand-dunes  by  the  sea,  and  one  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque art  schools  in  .\merica  was  soon  under 
way.  It  was  then  and  there  that  Chase  did 
perhaps  his  best  teaching  and  painted  his  best 
work  not  only  in  landscape,  shore  piece,  and 
marine,  but  in  portraiture,  genre,  and  still- 
life.  The  portrait  of  his  mother,  done  at  .Shinne- 
cock, was  almost  certainly  inspired  by  the  fine 
early  Rembrandt  of  an  aged  woman  in  the 
National  Galler.-,  and  yet  there  is  hardly  a  line 
of  resemblance  that  can  be  traced.  The  Chase 
portrait  is  ver^r  sob>er.  serious,  almost  severe  in  its 
white  cap  and  black  silk  dress.  It  has  no  3ourish 
o:  briih  nor  dare  of  coI-L-r,  and,  like  the  "VMiistler 
p-:'r:ra:t  of  his  mother,  seems  to  have  more  fine 


t 


-i  iiOOd-  1.   .nan  a.n 


^ther  portrait  of  his 
mm 'I.    Tms.    one   can   imagine. 


WTT.T.TOI  MEEHITT  CHASE  201 

came  about  in  both  cases  because  the  subjects 
were  intimately  known  to  the  painters,  and 
their  app>earance5  had  been  under  long  reflection 
before  either  painter  put  brush  to  canvas. 

It  was  perhaps  a  shortcoming  of  Chase's  art 
that  he  insisted  upon  merely  seeing  his  subject 
and  not  thinking  about  it.  The  appearance  to 
him  was  ever^-thing.  the  reflection  or  thought 
about  it  nothing.  Yet  the  pictures  of  his  that 
|>eop]e  like  best  are  the  ones  where  some  thinking 
was  done.  The  mother  portrait  is  the  instance 
just  given,  and  better  still  than  that  perhaps 
is  the  ''Woman  with  a  White  .Shawl."  now  in 
the  PennsA-lvania  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  The 
latter  is  beautifully  drawn  and  painted,  rightly 
plac*ed  on  the  canvas,  true  in  values,  technically 
as  nearly  right  as  an\-thing  Chase  ever  did, 
but.  oddly  enough,  one  d«>es  not  think  of  it 
tec-hnically  nor  regard  it  at  first  dec-'jratively. 
It  is  the  fine  humanity  of  it — the  eternal  wom- 
anly— that  catches  the  fancy.  It  is  the  por- 
trait of  a  sensitive,  refine^i  American  wonian — 
ir.  a  way  the  ideal  of  a  t^'pe  that  ever*  American 
has  seen  or  at  some  time  has  known  about. 
Chase,  with  all  Lis  talk  about  dealing  with  sur- 
:'ac-es  only,  sometimes  talke-i  the  other  way  and 
expand e^i  on  character.  He  knew  the  paint- 
brush could  ^o  beneath  the  s'-irfac-e.  fi-r  his  o'^ii 
brush  occasionally  brC'Ugh:  ur>  astonisLin;:  re- 
sults. The  -Woman  wiTi^  a  T\ii:e  Shawl"  iz  it^ 
zr.e  s^'mnathv  and  inhereu:  rennement  of  char- 


202  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

acter  may  be  regarded  as  Chase's  high-water 
mark  in  portraiture.  His  portraits  of  men 
like  those  of  Louis  Windmuller,  Dean  Gros- 
venor,  Robert  Underwood  Johnson,  hardly  reach 
up  to  it.  They  lack  interest. 

At  the  same  time  with  the  "Woman  with  a 
White  Shawl"  he  did  the  "Alice,"  now  in  the 
Chicago  Art  Institute — a  young  girl  with  a 
ribbon  thrown  back  of  her  shoulders  almost  like 
a  skipping-rope.  But  this  is  just  the  ordinary 
Chase — that  is,  an  excellent  and  well-drawn 
and  rightly  painted  girl  of  twelve  moving  across 
the  room  with  a  smiling,  somewhat  unintelli- 
gent, face.  The  only  thinking  that  Chase  put 
in  this  picture  was  in  regard  to  the  action  or 
movement  of  the  figure.  The  rest  was  merely  so 
much  still-life  painted  for  its  surface  texture  as 
one  might  paint  a  brass  bucket  or  the  scales  of  a 
fish.  And  yet  the  "Alice"  is  an  excellent  picture 
and  exhibits  Chase's  theory  of  art  quite  per- 
fectly. But  it  also  demonstrates  the  truth  that 
the  sum  of  art  does  not  lie  on  the  surface,  that 
the  model  alone  is  possibly  not  sufficient  in  it- 
self to  make  up  the  highest  kind  of  pictorial 
beauty,  and  that  the  intellectual  and  emotional 
nature  of  the  painter  is  a  potent  factor  in  all 
great  art.  Chase  at  heart  knew  that.  Titian's 
portraits  had  convinced  him  of  it  years  before. 

Honors,  prizes,  and  medals  were  coming  to 
him,  his  teaching  w^as  very  successful,  he  had  a 
large    following,    and    was    thought    the    most 


•■'I  he  Woman  with  tlic  WInIc  Sli;.ul/'  1,\    William  Mcrritt 
Clia-,'. 

hi    lllr    l'^I^,,^^,nll;.     \.;,,lrli,N     ..(    Ihr    1-11, ,■   ArN. 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  203 

considerable  of  our  art  leaders;  but  beneath  the 
surface  all  was  not  so  placid  or  so  pleasant. 
In  1895  he  was  no  longer  president  of  the 
Society,  he  gave  up  his  Brooklyn  class,  and  also 
his  Tenth  Street  studio.  Artistic  extravagance 
or  want  of  revenue  or  some  other  financial  dis- 
ability had  placed  him  in  straitened  circum- 
stances. All  of  his  pictures  and  collections  had 
to  be  sold  to  pay  his  debts.  With  character- 
istic indifference  he  gave  a  farewell  dinner  in  the 
big  studio  before  leaving  it,  gathered  together 
what  possessions  remained  to  him  in  a  house  in 
Stuyvesant  Square,  and  shortly  thereafter,  with 
his  family  and  a  number  of  pupils,  went  to  Spain. 
In  June  he  returned  to  Shinnecock,  and  in  the 
autumn  took  a  studio  at  Fifth  Avenue  and 
Thirtieth  Street,  and  opened  at  Fifty-seventh 
Street  the  Chase  School.  This  school  soon  be- 
came the  New  York  School  of  Art,  and  Chase 
was  at  its  head  for  eleven  years.  He  also  went  on 
teaching  at  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  Fine 
Arts,  going  over  to  Philadelphia  every  week  for 
the  purpose.  Then  for  half  a  dozen  years  he 
taught  and  painted  at  Shinnecock  with  little 
travel  interspersed.  It  was  during  these  years 
tluit  he  did  tlie  "Grey  Kimono"  and  the  "Red 
Box,"  portraits  arranged  with  Japanese  accesso- 
ries that  showed  brilliant  coloring,  swift  han- 
dling, and  rather  superficial  characterization. 
There  was  none  of  the  Japanese  spirit  or  even 
method  about  them.  Then,  too,  he  did  many 


204  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

shore  pieces  and  views  of  the  sea  with  the  Shin- 
necock  dunes  in  the  foreground.  In  these  pic- 
tures he  often  placed  in  the  first  plane  small 
children  in  white,  with  a  note  of  color  in  hats 
or  ribbons,  or  a  reading  woman  with  a  bright 
parasol.  The  bright  spots  of  color  lent  brilliancy 
of  effect  and  the  white  dresses  gave  a  high  pitch 
of  light.  They  were  very  attractive  pictures, 
and  some  of  the  seas  put  in  the  backgrounds 
had  notes  of  power  about  them;  but  usually 
the  product  was  merely  a  handsome  decorative 
pattern — ^just  what  the  painter  intended  it 
should  be. 

Occasionally,  too,  while  at  Shinnecock,  Chase 
painted  views  of  the  sea,  unadorned  or  unal- 
loyed by  beach  or  shore  or  people,  that  were 
very  effective  in  wave  movement  and  color.  He 
had  a  finer  feeling  for  color  and  texture  than 
Winslow  Homer  but  he  never  had  Homer's 
grasp  of  power.  In  his  studio  at  Shinnecock  he 
painted  portraits,  genre,  and  still-life — some  of 
the  last  being  fish.  Here,  in  still-life,  with  his 
cunning  handling  and  with  color  and  texture 
as  the  chief  motive,  he  appeared  to  great  ad- 
vantage. By  many  people  his  fish-painting  is 
regarded  as  his  highest  achievement.  In  no  less 
than  half  a  dozen  museums  in  the  United  States 
he  is  represented  by  still-life  pictures  in  which 
the  bulk,  the  weight,  the  limpness  of  dead  fish 
are  convincingly  shown,  but  where  perhaps 
greater  emphasis  is  thrown  on  the  slippery  wet 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  205 

surfaces  with  their  iridescent  colorings.  A  few 
years  before  he  died,  in  showing  a  new  fish- 
picture  in  his  studio  he  remarked  to  me  with 
some  deprecation  in  his  manner  that  he  sup- 
posed after  he  was  gone  he  would  be  known  as 
a  fish-painter!  He  had  made  the  same  protest 
to  others. 

A  short  trip  to  London  was  taken  in  1902. 
His  pupils  had  asked  him  to  sit  to  Sargent  for 
his  portrait  and  he  did  so.  The  portrait  was 
afterward  given  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
where  it  now  hangs.  Chase  greatly  admired  Sar- 
gent's sureness  and  facility  and  often  referred 
his  students  to  Sargent's  portraits  for  their 
study.  He  was  always  generous  in  recognition 
of  good  work,  even  where  perhaps  he  did  not  like 
the  worker's  point  of  view,  as  with  Boldini,  for 
example.  Sargent  and  Boldini  could  outfoot  him 
on  his  own  ground,  but  that  did  not  matter. 
He  could  still  cheer  for  them. 

It  was  during  1902  that  Chase  conceived  the  re- 
markable idea  of  not  only  going  to  Europe  him- 
self for  the  summer  months  but  taking  with 
him  his  entire  class  of  students.  The  first  con- 
tingent went  with  him  to  Holland,  and  at  Haar- 
lem one  night  at  dinner  he  gave  me  an  account 
of  the  venture  and  its  success.  His  pupils  had 
not  only  profited  by  foreign  scene  and  museum 
but  he  had  taken  them  to  see  certain  well- 
known  painters  in  their  studios  and  shown  them 
the  modern  methods  of  painting.  The  next  year 


206  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

he  took  the  class  to  England,  located  it  on  Hamp- 
stead  Heath,  and  introduced  it  at  the  studios 
of  Sargent,  Abbey,  La  very,  Alma-Tadema,  Shan- 
non. The  year  of  1905  the  class  was  in  Madrid 
and  after  that  for  a  number  of  years  in  Florence. 
Chase  bought  a  villa  in  Florence,  but  apparently 
it  was  little  more  than  a  storehouse  for  objects 
of  art  which  he  was  still  collecting.  He  spent 
much  time  at  Venice,  and  both  there  and  at 
Florence  would  take  his  pupils  to  the  great  gal- 
leries and  point  out  to  them  what  was  excellent 
in  the  old  masters.  It  was  a  new  method  of  art 
teaching  and  satisfactory  results  came  from  it. 

Chase's  winters  had  been  spent  in  New  York 
and  he  kept  moving  in  both  his  habitations  and 
his  occupations.  He  left  the  Fifth  Avenue  studio 
for  a  large  rambling  place  on  Fourth  Avenue, 
where  rooms  opened  into  rooms,  and  where 
he  continued  painting  people  and  fish.  He  again 
took  up  teaching  at  the  Art  Students  League, 
sent  pictures  to  the  International  Exhibition  at 
Berlin,  held  an  exhibition  of  his  own  at  Cin- 
cinnati, went  to  California  where  he  had  a  sum- 
mer school  at  Carmel-by-the-Sea,  served  as  a 
member  of  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  jury. 
His  energy  and  his  interest  were  unflagging.  He 
painted  and  taught  and  talked,  he  came  and  went 
and  came  again,  as  no  other  painter  in  American 
art-history.  His  industry  alone  would  command 
respect.  Even  when  he  fell  into  his  final  illness 
and  was  taken  to  Atlantic  City  for  change  of 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  207 

air  he  had  canvases  and  brushes  packed  and 
sent  with  him.  He  might  be  able  to  paint  down 
there.  At  the  last,  when  too  weak  to  read,  it 
pleased  him  to  go  over,  with  his  wife,  all  the 
beautiful  pictures  they  had  seen  together  and 
compare  their  likings.  His  enthusiasm  was  al- 
ways something  to  be  remembered;  and  when 
in  October,  1916,  he  died,  there  was  a  pro- 
nounced feeling  in  art  circles  that  not  only  a 
torch-bearer,  but  a  devoted  lover  of  art  had 
gone  on. 

There  was  nothing  complicated  or  hidden  or 
mysterious  about  either  Chase  or  his  art.  He 
frankly  stated  his  aim,  faith,  and  practice  more 
than  once  and  adhered  to  his  beliefs  for  more 
than  forty  years.  He  cared  nothing  about 
theories  or  philosophies  or  ideals  and  was  not 
led  off  by  realism,  impressionism,  or  cubism. 
He  talked  much  on  art,  not  only  to  his  classes 
but  to  miscellaneous  audiences;  but  he  indulged 
in  no  metaphysical  flights  and  spoke  a  language 
that  all  could  understand.  As  a  practical  painter 
his  primary  concern  was  with  the  ability  to  paint. 
The  picture  should  be  technically  and  mechani- 
cally a  good  piece  of  workmanship.  The  grammar 
of  art  first,  and  what  you  may  have  to  say  with 
it  afterward.  At  times  he  intimated  that  things, 
by  no  means  technical,  could  be  said  with  the 
paint-brush,  as,  for  example,  this  utterance: 
"Tlie  value  of  a  work  of  art  depends  simply  and 
solely  on  the  height  of  inspiration,  on  the  great- 


208  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

ness  of  soul,  of  the  man  who  produced  it."  But, 
generally  speaking,  Chase  cared  not  too  much 
for  "soul"  in  art  and  produced  little  of  it  in 
his  own  pictures.  His  creed  of  painting  was 
better  stated  in  another  sentence.  ''The  essen- 
tial phases  of  a  great  picture  are  three  in  number, 
namely:  truth,  interesting  treatment,  and  qual- 
ity." By  truth  he  meant  that  the  picture  should 
give  the  impression  of  a  thing  well  seen.  By  in- 
teresting treatment  he  meant  verve,  spirit,  en- 
thusiasm, the  interest  of  the  artist — ^an  interest 
which  should  express  itself  in  his  manner  of 
treatment.  Regarding  this  he  continued: 

*'To  my  mind,  one  of  the  simplest  explanations 
of  this  matter  of  technique  is  to  say  that  it  is 
the  eloquence  of  art.  When  a  speaker  has  the 
gift  of  fine  oratory  we  hang  upon  his  words  and 
gestures,  we  are  spellbound  by  his  intensity  and 
his  style,  no  matter  on  what  subject  he  chooses 
to  address  us.  I  fear  some  people  confuse  tech- 
nique with  the  use  of  a  slashing  brush  and  big 
rough  strokes  of  paint.  Let  me  refer  them  to 
the  works  of  the  Primitives  or  to  Holbein,  whose 
calm  surfaces  show  us  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
masters  of  the  technical  side  of  art."  * 

It  will  be  noted  that  Chase  in  his  pertinent 
likeness  of  painting  to  oratory  eliminates  the 
content  or  thing  said  and  puts  the  art  and  the 
oratory  all  in  the  manner  of  saying.  And  therein 

*  "Notes  from  Talks  by  William  M.  Chase"  in  The  Amerioan  Magazine 
cf  Art,  September,  1017. 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  209 

he  is  perhaps  right  so  far  as  the  matter  can 
be  separated  from  the  manner.  He  puts  the  sub- 
ject aside  as  one  might  say  there  is  no  poetry 
in  Darwin,  nothing  aesthetic  or  artistic,  though 
he  says  much  of  great  value,  whereas  there  is 
poetry  in  Swinburne  though  it  is  often  difficult 
to  find  out  whether  he  is  saying  anything  at  all 
or  merely  putting  out  a  pretty  run  or  rhythm  of 
language.  It  was  a  pretty  run  of  the  brush  that 
Chase  fancied  above  everything  else. 

"Subject  is  not  important.  Anything  can  be 
made  attractive.  Not  long  ago  I  painted  a  pipe, 
a  loaf,  and  a  bowl  of  milk.  ...  I  would  not 
be  unwilling  to  rest  my  reputation  on  it.  .  .  . 
Let  your  brush  sweep  freely.  Better  to  lose  it 
than  to  give  way  to  timidity  which  soon  becomes 
a  habit.  .  .  .  Better  be  dashingly  bad  and  in- 
teresting."* 

It  was  thus  he  talked  to  his  pupils  trying  to  con- 
vince them  that  art  lay  in  an  enthusiastic  in- 
dividual manner.  He  believed  that — believed 
tliat  the  art  of  painting  lay  In  clever  manipula- 
tion, In  gusto,  in  manual  dexterity.  But  that  did 
not  mean  a  slashing  about  at  haphazard  with  a 
heavily  loaded  brush. 

"Too  many  are  hurrying  on  to  give  what  Is 
called  'finish'  before  the}"  have  grounded  their 
work  In  the  truth  which  must  Inform  and  up- 
hold the  entire  structure.  .  .  .  Digest  the  sub- 
ject fully  before  beginning.  See  It  fully  done  and 

*  Ibid. 


210  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

well  done — ^perhaps  as  some  special  painter 
whose  work  you  admire  would  do  it.  To  begin  to 
paint  without  deciding  fully  what  your  sketch 
is  to  be,  would  be  like  a  lecturer  beginning  to 
talk  before  knowing  what  he  was  going  to  say."  * 

Now  that  is  excellent  doctrine  and  Chase  him- 
self followed  it  in  his  own  practice.  In  1890 
I  sat  to  him  for  a  portrait  and  I  recall  his 
saying  then  before  he  put  brush  to  the  can- 
vas: "  I  try  to  see  you  on  the  canvas  all 
finished  and  then  I  start  in  to  paint  you  as  I  see 
you  in  my  mind."  Later  on  in  the  painting  he 
was  fussed  by  the  collar  being  askew;  he  damned 
it,  said  it  was  not  rightly  seen  or  drawn,  scraped 
it  out  and  did  it  over  again.  He  was  concerned 
about  getting  a  certain  amount  of  realistic  truth 
as  well  as  easy  brush-work,  and  talked  much 
about  the  right  seeing  of  the  model.  But  there 
was  a  contradiction  in  temperament  just  here 
that  came  in  to  invalidate  his  aim  only  too  often. 

Enthusiasm  is  usually  impatient  of  delay  or 
restraint;  it  is  always  eager  for  action.  Yet  one 
cannot  fully  understand  even  so  obvious  an  ob- 
ject as  the  model  on  the  stand  without  reflection. 
It  must  be  seen  and  thought  over  and  contem- 
plated before  one  takes  up  the  brush.  Nothing 
very  great  comes  from  dashing  down  on  canvas 
something  seen  for  an  instant  only.  But  Chase, 
in  spite  of  his  talk,  was  not  one  who  reflected 
long  or  had  the  contemplative  mind.  He  seldom 

*  Ibid. 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  211 

fell  into  a  revery  or  lost  himself  in  a  labyrinth 
of  thought.  He  had  virtuosity  and  was  an 
improvisateur.  The  lilt  and  fling  of  his  work  were 
brilliant  in  the  extreme;  and  it  is  perhaps  foolish 
to  criticise  it  because  lacking  in  thought  or 
reflection,  and  yet  that  is  the  comment  oftenest 
heard  regarding  it.  His  pictures  are  declared  to 
have  neither  depth  of  feeling  nor  depth  of 
thought,  and  the  works  that  are  accounted  his 
best  are  the  exceptions  that  prove  the  rule. 

It  has  been  noted  also  that  Chase's  paint- 
ings were  never  very  elaborate  in  composition. 
He  did  nothing  of  a  historical  or  academic 
nature — nothing  even  in  figure-painting  beyond 
two  or  three  figures.  Putting  figures  together 
with  line  and  light,  in  plane  and  pattern,  per- 
haps called  for  too  much  reflection.  It  was  easier 
to  place  a  model  in  a  kimono  against  a  screen  or 
to  arrange  a  fish  in  a  plate  or  on  a  table,  or  to 
put  together  a  pipe,  a  loaf,  and  a  bowl.  He  was 
in  a  hurry  to  get  at  the  canvas,  and  wanted  none 
of  the  enthusiasm  to  evaporate.  Just  so  with 
liis  color  scheme.  He  would  not  think  over  it 
until  he  could  feel  it  swell  like  a  symphony, 
but  instead  put  in  unconsidered  colors  that 
were  perhaps  agreeable  enough  in  themselves, 
and  then  added  a  dash  of  sharp  red  to  catch 
tlie  eye  and  make  the  picture  "sing."  But 
it  was  usually  a  common  enough  song  that 
it  sang.  Distinction  of  color  is  not  obtained  by 
merely  arranging  studio  properties  on  canvas. 


il»  XMERICXS   P-\INTIXG 

Some  instinct  and  a  good  deal  of  feeling  go  to 
the  making  of  tlie  finest  color  projects.  So,  again, 
we  find  that  perhaps  the  common  objection  to 
Chase's  color  that  it  has  no  quality  is  more  or 
less  well-founded. 

He  knew  how  to  draw,  for  he  had  a  severe 
enough  schooling  at  Munich,  but  in  later  life  he 
oftentimes  ran  over  drawing,  hid  it  under  that 
easy  brush-stroke  which  he  liked  so  much  and 
which  he  usuallv  handled  so  effectivelv.  Some- 
times  it  went  astray.  It  was  not  the  premed- 
itated sweep  of  Rubens  or  the  infallible  touch 
of  Velasquez.  It  was  more  like  Goya  or  Stevens 
or  Vollon — painters  whose  brushes  were  not  al- 
ways impeccable.  However,  the  brush  of  Chase 
was  sure  enough,  and  with  its  spirit  and  swift 
movement  it  certainly  gave  that  oratorical  ef- 
fect to  which  he  compared  painting.  It  is  viva- 
cious and  witli  its  facility  creates  the  feeling 
of  knowledge  and  masterv.  That  was  something 
achieved  at  least.  A  surface  by  Chase  usually 
shows  that  a  skilled  workman  has  left  his 
mark  upon  it. 

His  idea  about  quality  in  art  was  that  it  came: 
"As  a  result  of  perfect  balance  of  all  the  parts 
and  may  be  manifested  in  a  color  or  tone  or 
composition.  In  the  greatest  pictures  it  is  found 
in  all  three,  and  then  you  may  be  sure  you  are 
before  the  most  consummate  of  human  works.''* 

The  definition  is  not  a  good  one,  and  he  apolo- 

•  Iy:d. 


% 


<  ;       > 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  213 

gized  for  his  inability  to  define  quality  by  saying 
that  it  is  like  trying  to  "tell  the  difference  be- 
tween music  and  mere  sound."  But  quality  is 
not  precisely  either  melody  or  harmony,  though 
it  is  the  difference  between  music  and  mere 
sound.  It  is  the  difference  also  between  silk  and 
gingham,  between  an  air  blue  and  a  baby -blue, 
between  a  luminous  shadow  and  gray  paint,  be- 
tween a  forceful,  telling  line  and  a  halting,  ram- 
bling one.  Quality  is  the  badge  of  distinction — 
that  something  which  puts  a  cachet  of  authority 
upon  a  work  of  art  and  places  it  among  the 
masterpieces  of  all  time.  Did  Chase  have  it  ?  Yes, 
occasionally.  Such  works  as  the  "Woman  with 
a  \Miite  Shawl"  possess  it.  From  which  it  may 
be  inferred  that  quality  is  more  or  less  dependent 
upon  thinking,  reflection,  mood — things  which 
were  not  always  apparent  in  Chase's  art. 

Yet  he  did  much  thinking  along  certain  paths 
and  had  something  very  important  to  say  to  his 
age  and  generation  about  sound  technique,  good 
workmanship.  In  a  literary  or  illustrative  sense 
he  recorded  no  more  romance,  history,  passion, 
power,  or  pathos  than  Whistler.  He  told  no  story 
in  paint,  indulged  in  no  dramatic  climaxes,  was 
guiltless  of  emotion,  and  perhaps  incapable  of 
poetry.  He  was  a  workman,  a  consummate 
craftsman  in  a  goldsmith  sense,  and  he  did  his 
thinking  about  his  work,  put  his  storm  and  stress 
and  soul  into  his  palette  and  brush.  As  a  work- 
man he  was  distinguished  by  a  manner  of  his  oV.n 


214  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

which  is  sometimes  referred  to  as  his  style — ^his 
individual  style.  His  method,  rather  than  his 
style,  he  passed  on  to  his  pupils,  and  his  influ- 
ence upon  them  was  perhaps  greater  than  upon 
the  community  at  large.  He  taught  more  young 
people  how  to  handle  a  brush  than  any  painter 
of  any  time,  not  excepting  Rubens.  Several  thous- 
and pupils  came  under  his  influence,  were  stimu- 
lated by  his  enthusiasm,  and  encouraged  by  his 
w^ords.  He  was  an  excellent  teacher,  and  Amer- 
ican art  is  perhaps  more  beholden  to  him  for 
what  he  taught  than  for  the  things  he  painted. 

For  the  pupils  now  carry  on  the  teaching,  and 
perhaps  from  them  may  come  a  greater  and  a 
loftier  art  than  Chase  himself  w^as  able  to  pro- 
duce. The  force  of  good  teaching  is  cumulative 
and  eventually  it  develops  into  that  body  of 
belief  and  practice  which  I  have  called  tra- 
dition. Chase,  like  Whistler,  was  not  an  in- 
heritor of  any  American  tradition,  but  he  es- 
tablished one  of  his  own  and  passed  it  on  to  his 
followers.  He  based  his  pupils  in  good  technical 
workmanship  and  taught  the  fundamental  value 
of  craftsmanship.  It  was  a  teaching  badly  needed 
in  his  America;  he  gave  it  importance  and  place 
in  the  schools  and  became,  perhaps  without  his 
knowing  it,  a  master  leader  in  the  craft. 

Chase's  painting  is  the  concrete  embodiment  of 
his  teaching — the  illustration  of  it.  It  has  the 
obvious  limitations  of  his  method  and  belief. 
To  pass  it  by  because  it  has  not  the  romance  of 


WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE  215 

a  Ryder  or  the  poetry  of  a  Martin  or  the  signif- 
icance of  a  La  Farge  is  to  miss  its  meaning 
entirely.  He  is  just  as  frankly  dealing  with  the 
surface  as  Whistler,  with  the  mere  difference 
that  Wliistler  asks  us  to  regard  him  decoratively 
and  Chase  desires  to  be  looked  at  technically, 
as  one  might  consider  a  Stevens,  a  Vollon,  a 
Fortuny,  or  a  Boldini.  We  surely  are  not  so 
narrow  in  outlook  as  to  deny  admiration  and 
high  rank  to  such  masters  of  the  brush  as  these. 
They  are  artists  in  the  narrow  sense  that  they 
deal  with  art  alone  and  consider  painting  only 
from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  but  who  shall 
say  they  are  not  precisely  and  exactly  right  .^ 
Each  turn  of  the  screw,  each  new  generation  in 
art,  pins  us  down  more  narrowly  and  positively 
to  the  material.  Perhaps  Whistler  and  Chase 
were  wrong  only  in  being  ahead  of  their  time. 

At  any  rate,  the  belief  in  material  and  method 
as  art  yer  se,  however  it  may  jar  preconceived 
notions,  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with.  And  here 
in  America  its  most  considerable  advocate  will 
have  to  be  taken  seriously.  By  certain  standards 
wc  may  judge  his  art  as  merely  clever,  but  he 
conceived  it  and  wrought  it  in  all  seriousness. 
Does  a  sword-hilt  by  Sansovino,  or  a  salt  dish 
by  Cellini,  or  a  screen  by  Utamaro  lack  In  either 
seriousness  or  art  ?  Wiy  not  then  a  canvas,  in  the 
same  spirit  of  the  skilled  workman,  by  Whistler 
or  Chase  ?     Wliy  not  ? 


IX 
JOHN   W.    ALEXANDER 


IX 

JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER 

Chase  and  Alexander  were  of  the  same  faith  in 
art  though  they  varied  in  ritual.  They  both  be- 
Heved  in  the  finahty  of  good  workmanship  dec- 
oratively  displayed.  They  had  differing  views 
of  what  constituted  design  and  color,  their  at- 
mosphere and  light  were  not  the  same,  and  each 
had  his  peculiar  handling;  but  with  all  this  lati- 
tude for  variation  in  method  there  was  no  essen- 
tial difference  in  aesthetic  aim  or  purpose.  The 
portrait  of  a  lady  was  to  both  of  them  not  pri- 
marily a  revelation  of  the  lady  but  a  presenta- 
tion of  a  decorative  pattern  in  which  the  sitter 
and  her  garmenting  held  large  place  because 
conforming  happily  to  an  "arrangement."  This, 
of  course,  was  the  Whistlerian  point  of  view  with 
which  Chase  and  Alexander  were  in  sympathy. 
All  three  of  them  frequently  rose  above  their 
creed  and  told  tales  of  the  lady's  charm,  or  wom- 
anl}^  instincts,  or  perhaps  gave  suggestion  that 
she  was  a  lady  and  not  merely  a  studio  model 
dressed  for  the  part;  but  usually  they  were  con- 
tent with  arranging  her  in  a  pattern  as  an  en- 
tomologist might  spread  and  pin  to  advantage 
a  golden  butterfly  on  a  blue-green  ground. 
To  question  their  practice  is  to  take  sides  in  a 

219 


220  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

very  old  quarrel  in  art.  For  they  were  the  David 
and  Ingres  of  the  new  dispensation.  Their  works 
were  based  in  method,  though  the  method  was 
brush-work  rather  than  drawing,  and  they  were 
pronounced  in  arrangement  though  the  arrange- 
ment was  a  pattern  of  light  and  color  instead  of 
line  and  group  composition.  Set  over  against 
them  are  the  Delacroixs  and  Millets  of  to-day 
who  are  no  longer  romantic  and  dramatic,  but 
lay  stress  on  sentiment,  feeling,  significance, 
character,  strength  rather  than  mere  pattern. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  name  them,  for  every  one 
will  recognize  the  species  and  call  to  mind  the 
types.  There  are  always  two  sides  to  a  quarrel, 
and  there  are  several  sides  to  art.  It  may  be  a 
symphony  of  color  as  Whistler  insisted,  an  ar- 
rangement of  line  or  a  matter  of  facile  workman- 
ship as  Alexander  and  Chase  contended.  No  one 
w^ill  deny  that.  In  fact  there  is  a  modern  disposi- 
tion to  locate  the  art  of  a  picture  strictly  within 
the  limits  of  craftsmanship.  But  a  picture  may 
express  something  more  than  the  skill  of  the 
painter.  Many  of  the  craft  have  shown  that  it  is 
a  means  of  expressing  moods,  passions,  feelings, 
sentiments,  emotions;  they  insist  that  line  and 
color,  and  all  the  what-not  of  technique,  are 
merely  the  means  to  an  end  and  not  the  end  it- 
self. Both  arguments  have  merit  and  are  abun- 
dantly exemplified  in  practice.  And  why  not 
something  worth  while,  something  asceptable,  in 
both.^ 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  221 

There  was  good  reason  why  Chase  and  Alex- 
ander should  be  accepted,  because  they  came 
at  a  time  when  method  in  America  was  in  sad 
need  of  reconstruction.  Modern  craftsmanship 
was  practically  unknown.  They  brought  it  into 
vogue,  established  it  as  the  grammar  of  art, 
gave  it  the  prominence  it  deserved.  It  was  then, 
as  now,  the  sine  qua  non  of  art.  One  must  know 
how  before  he  can  say  very  much  of  moment. 
There  have  been  painters  and  poets  with  very 
limited  skill  who  have  said  things  the  world  is 
glad  to  remember,  but  they  are  the  exceptions 
rather  than  the  rule.  The  Shakespeares,  Goethes, 
Titians,  and  Rembrandts  were  all  highly  trained 
craftsmen.  They  had  great  things  to  say,  surely; 
but  should  we  have  heard  them  had  they  be- 
longed to  the  unskilled?  How  many  in  all  the 
arts  have  had 

"  The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine 
Yet  wanting  the  accompHshment  of  verse!  " 

We  need  not,  then,  think  lightly  of  the  crafts- 
man in  American  art.  lie  has  proved  a  much- 
needed  person  in  the  school.  And  his  work  has 
also  turned  out  to  be  a  very  agreeable  factor 
in  the  home.  Art  of  a  decided  quality  does  lie 
in  the  eye  and  the  hand.  It  can  be  greatly  en- 
hanced in  significance  by  the  addition  of  a  mind 
and  a  soul,  but  these  latter  must  be  approaclied 
through  the  former  to  attain  their  full  expres- 


222  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

sion.  For,  to  repeat,  technique  or  craftsmanship 
is  at  the  bottom  of  all  artistic  expression. 
Alexander  learned  to  paint  in  practically  the 
same  roundabout  way  as  Chase.  He  was  born 
in  Alleghany  City  in  1856,  and  as  a  child  was 
reared  by  his  grandparents,  his  father  and 
mother  having  died  early.  At  twelve  he  was  a 
telegraph  messenger,  and  shortly  afterward, 
with  the  death  of  his  grandparents,  he  came 
under  the  guardianship  of  Colonel  Edward  J. 
Allen.  He  was  persuaded  to  give  up  the  telegraph 
work  and  go  to  school,  but  at  eighteen  he  broke 
away  and  went  to  New  York.  He  had  given  signs 
as  a  boy  of  artistic  tendencies,  his  drawings  had 
attracted  some  attention,  and  he  went  to  New 
York  to  make  illustrations  for  the  Harpers. 
There  •  was  some  disappointment  at  first.  The 
Harpers  had  not  heard  of  him  and  did  not  want 
his  artistic  services,  not  even  as  an  apprentice. 
But  they  needed  an  office  boy.  He  accepted  the 
place,  and  through  it  got  into  the  art  depart- 
ment, where  he  finally  came  to  work  upon  blocks 
and  plates.  Charles  Parsons  was  then  in  charge 
of  the  department,  and  E.  A.  Abbey,  Stanley 
Reinhart,  and  A.  B.  Frost  were  there.  Alexander 
learned  much  from  their  counsel  and  example. 
From  1875  to  1877  there  appeared  in  Harper  s 
Weekly  an  occasional  political  cartoon  signed 
"Alexander,"  and  in  1877  during  the  great  strike 
in  Pittsburgh  there  were  a  number  of  large 
sketclies  and  illustrations  sis:ned  "J.  W.  Alex- 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  223 

ander."  Later  on  he  did  for  the  Harper  publica- 
tions and  also  for  the  Century  Magazine  various 
illustrations  signed  "J.  W.  A.";  but  this  was 
after  he  had  been  to  Munich  and  had  had 
some  exact  training. 

He  remained  with  the  Harpers  three  years,  and 
then  with  Albert  G.  Reinhart  he  went  to  Europe, 
The  pair  had  intended  to  study  art  in  Paris  at 
the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  but  on  arrival  there 
they  found  the  school  closed  for  the  summer. 
With  no  French  to  their  name,  Paris  was  a  little 
dreary,  and  they  drifted  on  to  Munich — ^be- 
cause Reinhart  understood  a  little  German,  it 
is  said.  The  Munich  Academy  was  open,  and 
Alexander  entered  the  classes  of  Professor  Benz- 
cur  and  remained  there  for  some  three  months. 
The  teaching  proved  too  academic  and  the  liv- 
ing in  Munich  too  high  for  him,  and  he  went  to 
Polling,  a  small  town  in  Bavaria,  where  there 
was  an  American  art  colony  under  the  shep- 
herding of  Frank  Duveneck.  Shirlaw,  Currier, 
Joseph  De  Camp,  Ross  Turner  were  of  the 
group.  Alexander  fell  into  good  company  and 
began  at  once  to  profit  by  the  association.  ^Miile 
at  Polling  he  sent  sketches  to  the  student's  ex- 
hibition at  Munich  and  won  for  them  a  bronze 
medal — ^liis  first  honor.  Two  years  were  passed 
in  Bavaria  and  then  he  joined  Duvcneck's  class 
to  study  art  in  Italy.  Tliere  were  twenty-three 
in  the  class,  and  AlexandcM"  witli  Duveneck  went 
ahead  to  Florence  to  engage  studios  for  them. 


254  AMERIC-VN'  P.UXTIXG 

Two  winters  were  spent  at  Florence — the  sum- 
mer months  being  more  agreeably  put  in  at 
Venice.  It  was  at  Venice  in  the  summer  of  1880 
that  Alexander  met  ^Tiistler  and  received  coun- 
sel and  direction  from  him.  The  advice  was 
very  potent  in  helping  him  out  of  the  dark 
Munich  rut  and  suggesting  that  the  decorative 
was  perhaps  more  important  than  the  merely 
realistic  or  representative.  Indeed  the  ^Tiistler 
influence  was  the  most  compelling  the  young 
student  had  yet  encountered.  It  made  a  decided 
impression  upon  him  and  changed  perhaps  the 
whole  trend  of  his  art.  For  while  Alexander 
never  imitated  ^^^listler's  schemes  or  patterns, 
he  accepted  the  decorative  point  of  view,  giv- 
ing it  out  in  his  own  way  with  many  changes 
and  modifications  brought  about  by  later  ob- 
servation in  Paris.  He  was  always  impression- 
able and  quick  to  adopt  new  ideas,  and  yet  it  is 
almost  impossible  in  his  work  to  trace  home  any 
feature  to  a  given  source.  In  that  respect  he  was 
perhaps  more  original  than  Chase  or  even 
Whistler  himself. 

\Miile  in  Florence  he  supported  himself  by  send- 
ing drawings  to  the  Harper  publications  and 
teaching  a  class  of  students;  but  he  soon  realized 
that  he  was  holding  back  his  own  progress  by 
such  work,  and  in  1881  he  decided  to  return  to 
America.  Arrived  at  Pittsburgh,  he  made  a 
trip  down  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  with 
Fred  MuUer  to  illustrate  an  article  on  "King 


JOHN  W.  ALEX.\NDER  i%6 

Coal's  Highway."  The  article  appeared  in  Har- 
per'sMonihly  for  January,  1882.  The  illustrations 
were  realistic  enough,  but  not  remarkable  in 
any  way.  They  created  no  furor.  Alexander 
came  on  shortly  thereafter  to  New  York,  took 
a  studio  in  the  German  Bank  Building,  at  Fourth 
Avenue  and  Fourteenth  Street,  and  soon  was 
doing  a  portrait  of  a  little  daughter  of  Henr^- 
Harper.  He  moved  to  the  Chelsea  Studios  in 
Twenty-third  Street,  continued  with  portrait- 
ure, and  became  interested  in  the  art  movements 
of  the  time.  People  looked  upon  him  as  a  young 
man  of  ability.  He  had  not  Chase's  vogue  but 
he,  nevertheless,  had  his  group  of  admirers. 
In  1881  he  was  in  Spain  and  Morocco,  and  in 
1886  he  went  to  England  for  the  Century  Maga- 
zine, having  been  commissioned  to  do  certain 
portraits  of  literary  men — George  Bancroft, 
Thomas  Hardv,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  He 
did  Stevenson  at  Bournemouth,  stopping  with 
him  while  sketching  him.  He  also  did  Austin 
Dobson,  and  went  to  Ireland  to  draw  some  illus- 
trations for  articles  by  Charles  de  Kay.  The 
portraits  were  apparently  sketches  in  charcoal 
and  gave  only  a  summary  of  the  heads.  They 
were  well  done  and  rightly  emphasized  for 
reproduction.  The  illustrations  for  the  Ireland 
articles  were  decidedly  good  in  the  landscapes 
— something  for  which  Alexander  had  a  tal- 
ent, but  which  he  never  cared  to  follow  up 
until  late  in  life  and  then  apparently  for  his  own 


226  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

pleasure.  This  work  and,  in  fact,  that  of  the 
next  half-dozen  years  did  not  bring  Alexander 
into  any  great  prominence  in  America.  He  had 
not  found  himself — ^he  had  not  "arrived"  in  a 
large  sense. 

Up  to  1890  his  work  had  hardly  so  much  as 
suggested  his  later  bent  or  method.  The  "Head 
of  a  Boy"  and  "Sketch  of  a  Boy,"  shown  in  a 
recent  memorial  exhibition  at  the  Century  Club, 
are  both  of  them  early  efforts  done  at  Polling. 
They  are  in  the  dark  Munich  style  of  Duveneck 
and  not  unlike  things  that  Shirlaw  and  Chase 
were  doing  a  few  years  earlier.  "Old  Cole"  in 
the  same  exhibition,  done  in  1881,  again  indi- 
cates Munich  teaching.  The  lights  are  sur- 
rounded by  darks  and  the  darks  are  darkened  by 
bitumen.  There  is  no  attempt  at  fine  color  or 
decorative  pattern,  but  rather  a  desire  for  the 
realistic  largeness  of  the  model  with  a  resultant 
brusque  modelling  and  some  dragging  of  a 
heavily  loaded  brush.  The  portrait  of  "Thurlow 
Weed"  gives  a  big  strong  head  relieved  by 
being  in  high  light  and  again  surrounded  by 
darks.  One  might  think  from  a  casual  glance 
that  it  had  been  inspired  by  Lenbach.  The  por- 
trait of  "Jefferson  as  Bob  Acres,"  while  it  still 
shows  Munich  methods,  is  something  of  a  de- 
parture. It  is  a  costume  and  footlight  portrait 
with  the  lights  very  high,  the  shadows  pro- 
nounced, the  color  very  gay.  It  was  well  set, 
well  drawn,  easily  painted  upon  ordinary  can- 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  227 

vas,  and  in  the  usual  oil  medium.  The  portrait 
had  spirit  and  life  about  it  and  yet  gave  small 
indication  of  what  Alexander's  style  would  ul- 
timately become.  Just  so  with  the  rather  fine 
portrait  of  "Walt  Whitman,"  now  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum.  The  hark  back  to  Lenbach  in 
the  insistent  relief  of  the  head  and  hands  as  spots 
of  white  surrounded  by  dark  is  quite  apparent. 
Perhaps  here  there  is  a  pose  of  the  figure  and 
a  sweep  of  the  beard  that  suggest  Alexander's 
later  swing  and  swirl  of  lines,  but  it  is  not  very 
marked. 

This  work,  done  for  the  most  part  before  he  was 
thirty,  was  talked  about  and  praised  in  New 
York  art  circles,  but  it  was  really  Paris  that 
gave  Alexander  rank.  He  had  been  married  in 
1887  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Alexander,  and  in  1890 
they  went  abroad  for  a  few  months  that  he  might 
recuperate  from  an  attack  of  the  grippe.  They 
remained  away  eleven  years.  The  time  was  spent 
chiefly  in  Paris,  and  it  was  to  the  Societe  Na- 
tionale  des  Beaux  Arts  that  he  sent,  in  1893, 
three  portraits  that  made  a  decided  hit.  They 
were  entitled  "Portrait  Gris,"  "Portrait  Noir, " 
and  "Portrait  Jaune."  The  titles  suggest  color 
schemes,  qualities  of  tone,  garments  arranged 
gracefully  to  fill  space  and  make  a  decorative 
pattern — in  short,  the  things  that  thereafter 
gave  individuality  to  Alexander's  art.  Paris  im- 
mediately took  notice  of  them;  the  Societe  elect- 
ed him  an  associate  member,  and  the  next  year. 


228  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

when  he  sent  a  panel  of  five  portraits,  he  was 
elected  a  full  member.  His  reputation  and  his 
commissions  from  that  time  increased  rapidly. 
He  was  a  success. 

Alexander  has  been  called  "the  most  Parisian 
of  the  Americans,"  and  yet  just  why  one  hardly 
knows.  His  refined  taste,  his  sensitiveness,  his 
animation  are  less  French  than  American,  and 
it  must  be  his  method  that  suggests  Paris.  But 
whom  in  Paris  .'^WTiat  painter  can  you  point  to  as 
the  original  or  even  the  inspiration  of  his  style  ? 
Carriere,  Besnard,  La  Touche — ^j^ou  think  of 
them  only  to  dismiss  them  from  mind. Whistler, 
Albert  Moore,  Burne-Jones,  the  Japanese,  af- 
ford little  clew.  Perhaps  the  obvious  explana- 
tion is  that  Alexander  merely  followed  his  own 
inclination  and  developed  a  method  and  a  style 
quite  his  own.  Others  have  done  so  before  him 
and  why  not  he  ?  Very  likely  some  one  suggested 
a  coarse  absorbent  canvas  with  thin  petroleum 
or  turpentine  as  a  medium,  or  he  may  have  seen 
the  results  obtained  by  such  materials  in  pictures 
at  the  Salon  or  elsewhere.  Paris  has  always  been 
replete  with  new  mediums  and  methods  and  has 
had  its  generations  of  painters  who  could  do 
no  more  with  the  new  than  with  the  old.  But 
Alexander's  painting  was  something  more  than 
an  absorbent  canvas.  He  had  an  original  point 
of  view  and  the  new  materials  merely  helped 
him  to  reveal  it. 

Perhaps  his  originality  grew  out  of  many  ob- 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  229 

servations  and  developed  from  many  sources. 
Duveneck  in  the  realistic  and  Whistler  with  the 
decorative  each  had  their  day  and  sway  with 
him.  Something  of  the  Japanese  becomes  ap- 
parent in  a  flattening  of  the  canvas,  in  elimina- 
tion of  non-essential  features,  in  gaining  a 
sketchy  effect  by  filling  in  large  spaces  with  flat 
tones  and  throwing  emphasis  upon  salient  points 
of  high  light  and  color.  Finally  comes  an  unusual 
employment  of  dress  in  making  a  pattern  of 
swirling  lines  which  not  only  contrast  with  the 
angles  of  the  canvas  but  lend  movement  and 
life  to  the  figure.  The  use  of  drapery  for  line  effect 
is,  of  course,  apparent  all  through  art.  Alexander 
may  have  taken  suggestions  regarding  this  from 
Greek  marbles  or  Italian  pictures  or  Pre-Raph- 
aelite glass.  But  so  vague  and  shadowy  are 
all  these  sources  of  influence  that  one  cannot 
trace  them  home.  Such  pictures  as  "The  Green 
Gown,"  "A  Rose,"  "The  Gossip,"  "The  Ring," 
have  no  counterpart  in  any  painting,  ancient  or 
modern.  One  comes  back  again  to  a  former  con- 
clusion that  they  are  Alexander's  own  creations 
— his  distinct  contribution  to  art. 

TIow  far  does  the  contribution  carry?  Well, 
little  farther  than  the  decorative  face  of  tlie 
canvas.  The  handsome,  well-gowned,  and  well- 
bred  young  woman  who  holds  the  rose  or  ring 
or  bowl  is  only  part  of  a  color  pattern  on  the 
canvas.  She  does  not  symbolize  or  signify  much 
of  anything  beyond  that.  You  could  not  guess  if 


230  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

she  has  a  brain  or  a  heart  or  a  soul.  She  is  not  a 
document  or  a  problem  or  even  a  character. 
Alexander  did  not  believe  that  painting  was  a 
means  of  epitomizing  abstract  ideas  but  merely 
a  way  of  revealing  graceful  color  patterns  that 
please  the  eye  and  hang  harmoniously  upon  the 
wall.  There  is  nothing  intensive  or  dramatic  or 
even  narrative  about  his  work.  It  is  not  senti- 
mental or  emotional  or  passion-strung.  A  late 
canvas  like  that  entitled  "Husband,  Wife,  and 
Child"  may  suggest  sentiment,  but  only  as  a 
superfluity.  The  painter  meant  to  stop  with 
the  completed  pattern. 

Almost  always  the  pattern  is  agreeable  and 
sufficient  in  itself  as  art.  The  space  is  happily 
filled  with  one  figure,  sometimes  two,  but  sel- 
dom more.  The  linear  design  meets  the  upright 
of  the  frame  with  flowing  lines  in  which  repetition 
plays  more  of  a  part  than  contrast.  "The  Blue 
Bowl"  is  a  good  illustration.  The  figure  is  placed 
diagonally  upon  the  canvas,  the  bowl  lines  are 
repeated  in  the  head  and  shoulders,  the  dress 
is  spread  in  fan-like  lines  toward  the  far  corner 
of  the  canvas.  The  whole  design  is  unusual  and 
extraordinary  but  very  graceful.  So,  too,  with 
"The  Ring,"  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
where  a  young  woman  seated  on  a  lounge  with 
a  large  straw  hat  in  her  lap  is  holding  up  a  ring 
for  admiration.  The  round  hat  somehow  suggests 
a  repetition  of  the  round  head,  and  the  dress 
lines  repeat  its  curves.  Great  care  is  taken  with 


•"I'lic  lUuixr  l.\-  .loliu  \V.  AIcnhihI.t. 

li,  III,'  M,  ii-,.|M.lii,,ii  Mmmm,,.,  ..r  An, 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  231 

the  linear  arrangements  of  all  these  single  fig- 
ures. The  composition  is  carefully  thought  out, 
wrought  out,  brought  out. 

Just  as  important  as  the  design  is  the  color 
scheme.  It  is,  in  fact,  so  prominent  that  the  title 
of  the  picture  is  often  derived  from  it.  "The 
Green  Gown"  or  "The  Blue  Bowl"  are  hints 
that  green  or  blue  is  the  key  in  which  the  picture 
is  pitched.  The  continuance  or  repetition  or 
perhaps  slight  variance  of  the  green  or  blue 
runs  through  the  whole  picture  and  produces 
what  is  called  a  tone  or  harmony  or  symphony 
in  green  or  blue.  The  aim  with  Alexander  is 
precisely  as  with  Whistler.  Neither  of  them 
harps  on  the  one  note  to  the  exclusion  of  every 
other,  but  the  one  note  nevertheless  prevails 
throughout.  The  picture  by  Alexander  called 
"The  Rose"  shows  a  young  girl  in  dull  green 
which  would  be  monotonous  if  insisted  upon 
everywhere.  It  is  relieved  by  the  pink  of  tlie 
flesh,  the  dark  hair,  the  white  linen,  but  above 
all  by  the  rose  which  the  girl  holds  In  her  hand. 
Tlie  rose  hue  is  in  the  same  tone  of  Ilglit  as  the 
green  and  emphasizes  the  latter  because  red  Is 
the  complementary  color  of  green. 

The  appearance  of  complementary  or  slightly 
varying  colors  in  the  central  high  liglits  argues 
the  prevalence  of  a  large  half-tone  In  the  back- 
ground and  Intermediate  spaces.  This  half-tone 
when  prepared  in  a  thin  medium  like  petroleum 
and  used  upon  a  soft  or  absorbent  canvas  sinks 


232  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

into  the  canvas,  becomes  an  atmospheric  depth, 
becomes  vague,  indefinite,  mysterious.  To  avoid 
too  much  monotony  of  half-tone  Alexander 
very  often  introduced  a  burst  of  light  upon  the 
figure.  This  sounds  Hke  the  old  Rembrandt- 
Lenbach  formula  which  he  followed  in  his  early 
student  days  at  Munich,  but  his  later  practice 
diffused  the  illumination,  made  it  less  hard  on 
the  edges,  and  more  atmospheric.  Even  in  cer- 
tain pictures  where  a  ray  of  sunshine  is  shot  into 
a  dark  room  through  an  unlatched  door  the  ray 
is  not  hard  and  the  half-tone  gives  it  an  at- 
mospheric setting  quite  extraordinary. 

Under  these  peculiar  conditions  of  canvas,  of 
tone,  of  illumination,  the  drawing  is  often  flat- 
tened, even  abbreviated.  The  heads  and  cos- 
tumes are  brushed  in  broadly,  the  hands  are 
sometimes  passed  over  with  a  mere  suggestion 
of  form  or  value,  the  accessories  are  still  more 
vague  in  line,  in  bulk,  in  texture.  Nothing  but 
things  of  vital  importance  are  given.  By  sup- 
pression of  the  parts  the  painter  gets  concentra- 
tion on  certain  salient  features  of  surface,  or 
light  or  color.  With  thin  painting  in  the  ground 
and  shadows  and  fat  painting  in  the  high  lights 
the  picture  takes  on  the  look  of  a  large  and 
easily  done  sketch.  A  feeling  of  freedom,  of 
spontaneity,  is  apparent,  and  with  it  life,  spirit, 
gusto  in  the  recital. 

Tliere  was  more  or  less  variation  of  this  sketch- 
appearance    in    all    Alexander's    late    canvases. 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  233 

Sometimes  he  drew  with  sharper  edges  and  more 
protrusive  modelling  and  produced  a  more  real- 
istic effect;  but  far  oftener  he  gave  merely  a 
suggestion  of  form  or  created  an  atmospheric 
nimbus  with  his  tone  that  surrounded  and  en- 
veloped the  figure.  It  has  been  frequently  noted 
in  these  pages  that  almost  every  painter  oscil- 
lates between  too  much  drawing  and  not  enough. 
When  Alexander  dismissed  his  form  rather  sum- 
marily for  a  tone  or  a  texture,  his  critics  declared 
him  vague,  shadowy,  merely  decorative;  when 
he  insisted  upon  the  drawing  and  perhaps  mini- 
mized his  tone,  he  was  declared  prosaic.  He  did 
not  have  to  be  told  that  he  was  between  the  devil 
and  the  deep  sea.  Every  painter  knows  it,  or 
comes  to  know  it,  before  he  has  struggled  through 
many  canvases. 

A  more  frequent  comment  on  Alexander  was 
that  he  was  a  painter  of  attitudes  and  draperies — 
nature  plus  a  pose.  To  avoid  the  conventional 
he  chose  the  accidental  and  the  momentary 
rather  than  the  characteristic  or  permanent. 
He  was  seeking  the  decorative,  and  his  girl  in 
green  or  gray  or  yellow  was  just  a  little  more 
elegantly  disposed  than  In  nature.  It  was  frankly 
an  "arrangement" — a,  placing  of  the  figure  and 
a  disposition  of  the  accessories  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. The  robes  were  swung  in  gracefully 
with  no  sharp  angle  lines  or  crabbed  pothooks 
to  break  the  flow.  The  photographer  of  to-day 
seeks  to  produce  the  same  graceful  exaggeration 


234  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

but  with  less  success.  And  the  reaHst  who  de- 
picts the  charwoman  bending  over  the  ash-barrel 
usually  exaggerates  more  positively  the  other 
way.  If  the  beauty  of  the  ugly  in  an  awkward 
pose  may  be  accounted  art,  why  not  the  beauty 
of  the  charming  in  a  graceful  pose?  Alexander 
got  what  he  could  out  of  his  handsome  model, 
making  her  a  little  more  graceful  than  reality, 
to  be  sure,  but  did  not  Van  Dyck,  Reynolds, 
Gainsborough,  Lawrence,  do  the  same  thing 
with  marked  success  ? 

His  portrait  sitters  differed  from  his  abstract 
types  holding  a  ring  or  a  blue  bowl  or  a  rose 
chiefly  in  the  matter  of  a  facial  likeness.  The 
"arrangement"  was  carried  out  with  the  one  as 
with  the  other,  though  it  was  usually  not  so  con- 
spicuous in  the  portrait  as  in  the  type.  Perhaps 
because  the  costume  and  coloring  of  women 
were  more  adaptable  to  the  "arrangement"  than 
the  costume  and  coloring  of  men,  the  painter 
achieved  the  reputation  of  being  more  successful 
with  the  former  as  sitters  than  wuth  the  latter. 
Certainly  in  his  most  attractive  portraits  of 
women  he  has  not  failed  to  use  graceful  com- 
position, and  has  gotten  much  pictorial  effect 
out  of  his  color,  tone,  and  light.  The  "Mrs. 
Hastings,"  for  instance,  is  both  portrait  and 
picture.  It  is  expectant  in  look  and  lively  in 
spirit.  The  pose  in  profile,  which  is  repeated 
vaguely  in  the  Winged  Victory  back  of  the  fig- 
ure, is  complemented  by  a  color  and  a  tone  quite 


JOHN   W.   ALEXANDER  235 

in  keeping.  It  is  one  of  the  painter's  best  efforts. 
The  "Mrs.  Duryea"  is  perhaps  a  Httle  more  con- 
scious in  its  formahty.  The  space  is  not  so  well 
filled  and  the  dress  spreads  too  obviously.  With 
the  *'  Mrs.  Ledyard  Blair  "  the  dress  again 
spreads  for  decorative  effect  and  becomes  pro- 
nounced in  importance.  A  similar  result  is  appar- 
ent in  the  portrait  known  as  the  "Woman  in 
Gray"  now  in  the  Luxembourg.  All  of  these  last- 
mentioned  portraits  have  excellences  quite  aside 
from  their  decorative  planning,  and  the  "Woman 
in  Gray"  had  much  to  do  in  creating  Alexander's 
vogue  in  Paris ;  but  one  turns  from  them  to  the 
refined  simplicity  of  the  "Miss  Dorothy  Roose- 
velt" with  some  relief.  Sometimes  nature  is  not 
the  better  for  being  "arranged." 

WTien  it  was  necessary  to  insist  upon  charac- 
terization Alexander  could  do  it,  and  do  it  well. 
The  "Mrs.  Wheaton,"  an  old  lady  with  gray 
hair  and  lace  cap,  done  in  1904,  is  excellent  in  its 
gentle  (not  brutal)  realization  of  the  model.  It 
is  quite  in  the  class  with  the  Whistler  and  Chase 
mother  portraits,  and  in  refinement  is  perhaps 
superior  to  either  of  the  others.  The  children 
canvases  of  "Eleanor  Alexander"  with  the  doll 
in  the  chair  or  "Geraldine  Russell"  standing 
at  full  length  are  equally  good. 

It  is  true  enough  that  the  grace  and  charm 
belonging  to  women  and  children  seemed  to 
appeal  to  Alexander  more  than  the  sturdier 
qualities  of  men.   lie  painted   many  men   but 


236  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

they  were  not  always  as  forceful  as  the  "Fritz 
Thaulow."  That  figure  has  bulk  and  body  to  it 
but  again  no  brutality.  It  is  more  forceful  than 
the  "Walt  Whitman,"  which  is  just  a  little  too 
much  ironed  out  and  smoothed  down  for  the 
vociferous  original.  The  beard  and  hair  and  soi- 
disant  look  are  those  of  a  poet  rather  than 
Whitman — ^a  distinction  with  a  difference  to 
some  people.  The  "Dr.  Patton"  in  academic 
robes  as  president  of  Princeton  is  probably  as 
satisfactory  as  any  of  Alexander's  portraits 
of  men.  It  is  a  simple,  well-drawn,  convincing 
presentation,  not  surprising  in  any  way  nor  again 
falling  short  in  any  way. 

All  of  this  work  is  simple,  large  in  design,  not 
confused  with  detail  or  small  objects,  and  al- 
ways with  ample  breathing  room.  Alexander  at- 
tempted no  elaborate  grouping  or  historical 
composition  except  in  his  designs  for  mural 
decoration.  The  earlier  pictures  such  as  "Pan- 
dora" and  "The  Pot  of  Basil"  are  merely  single 
figures.  "The  Piano"  is  a  single  figure  with  a 
piano,  the  "Memories"  is  two  figures,  as  is  also 
the  "Music  Panel."  They  are  all  spacious  and 
do  not  crowd  the  canvas  or  the  frame.  Occasion- 
ally he  did  landscapes — some  of  them  up  in  the 
hills  about  Cornish,  New  Hampshire — in  which 
there  is  the  same  simplicity  of  design  and  feel- 
ing of  space  in  hillside,  valley,  and  sky.  His 
landscapes  have  a  decorative  swing  of  line  similar 
in  kind  to  his  figure  pictures,  and  there  is  some- 


\\;ill   Wliiliiiai:,""  l)v   .I..I111  W.  AlcxaiHlcr. 

h,    11, r    Mrlropolll;,,!    Ml]..  Mill    ..I'     \  r  I  . 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  237 

thing  of  the  same  tonal  effect,  though  less  pro- 
nounced. In  other  words,  the  painter  saw  or 
read  the  decorative  into  landscape  as  into  figures, 
which  may  be  considered  a  mistake  if  one  is 
looking  for  a  realistic  presentation,  but  is  just 
as  certainly  a  success  if  one  is  looking  for  some- 
thing to  hang  upon  the  wall  that  shall  not 
clash  with  every  other  object  in  the  room. 

Therein  lies  a  marked  feature  of  Alexander's 
work.  It  is  art  that  can  be  lived  with.  It  takes  its 
place  in  the  household  and  accommodates  itself 
to  almost  any  color  scheme  because  of  its  neutral 
tone  and  lack  of  glittering  notes.  How  many 
modern  easel  pictures  are  keyed  up  to  the  shriek- 
ing point,  and  are  planned  to  outshriek  their 
neighbors  in  an  exhibition  !  They  are  Salon  pic- 
tures— "machines"  that  make  a  clatter  and 
having  served  their  purpose  go  back  to  the 
studio  and  are  faced  against  the  wainscoting. 
But  Alexander's  pictures  could  be  taken  home 
without  danger  of  a  family  quarrel.  They  are 
delicate  enough  in  pattern  to  go  in  the  drawing- 
room  and  refined  enough  in  manner  to  be  seen 
and  not  heard. 

Perhaps  this  very  quality  of  refinement,  so 
acceptable  in  his  easel  pictures,  was  something 
of  a  defect  in  his  mural  decorations.  The  great- 
ly enlarged  wall  space  of  a  public  building 
called  for  more  intensity  of  color,  more  sharp 
contrast  of  angle  lines,  more  loftiness  and  elab- 
orateness   of    composition     than    the    painter 


238  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

dreamt  of  in  his  art  philosophy.  His  attempts  at 
mural  painting  were  somewhat  sporadic.  It  was 
not  exactly  his  metier,  and  though  he  took  it  up 
with  energy  when  asked  to  do  so,  he  succeeded  in 
producing  little  more  than  an  enlargement  of 
his  easel  pictures.  The  same  tone,  light,  and  color 
of  his  portraits  and  single  figures  went  into  the 
groupings  in  the  Congressional  Library^  the 
Harrisburg  Capitol,  and  the  Carnegie  Institute 
at  Pittsburgh.  The  Library  decorations  gave  the 
''Evolution  of  the  Book"  in  six  lunettes  that 
illustrated  the  stages  of  book-making  rather 
than  symbolized  or  epitomized  them.  At  Harris- 
burg the  theme  was  the  "Evolution  of  the 
State,"  another  set  of  fourteen  lunettes.  The 
decoration  at  Pittsburgh  was  the  most  ambitious 
performance  of  the  three  and  sought  to  tell  the 
story  of  Pittsburgh — ^the  story  of  steel  and  labor. 
It  is  called  the  "Apotheosis  of  Pittsburgh," 
with  the  city  personified  by  a  knight  in  armor 
with  a  flaming  sword  in  his  hand  instead  of  the 
large  female  figure  of  conventional  decoration. 
The  panels  carry  over  three  stories  of  the  en- 
trance-hall of  the  Carnegie  Institute  and  some 
five  hundred  figures  are  used.  The  first  floor 
shows  the  half -naked  furnacemen  at  work  amid 
smoke,  steam,  and  fire  glare.  The  smoke  and 
steam  rise  up  and  envelop,  make  an  atmospheric 
setting  for,  the  allegorical  figures  of  the  second 
floor  that  from  all  sides  are  bringing  tributes  to 
the  mailed  figure  of  Pittsburgh.  The  allegorical 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  239 

figures  are  winged,  robed  in  long  trailing  gar- 
ments, and  drift  lightly  through  the  air  or  upon 
clouds.  The  third  floor  contains  lunettes  typify- 
ing the  arts  and  sciences. 
The  whole  decoration  is  well  thought  out, 
and  is  put  together,  within  its  framings  of 
yellowish  marble,  with  a  distinctly  decorative 
effect.  The  tone  of  it  is  quiet,  subdued,  restful — 
perhaps  too  much  so.  The  figures  are  graceful, 
even  the  men — again,  perhaps  too  much  so. 
One  is  not  sorry  that  Labor  is  shown  with  cheer- 
ful face  and  normal  body  rather  than  sad- 
browed,  nerve-racked,  and  body-wrecked,  after 
the  Zola-Meunier  formula.  That  exaggeration 
has  become  just  as  conventional  and  wearisome 
as  the  prettiness  of  Bouguereau,  or  the  pettiness 
of  Meissonier.  But  Alexander's  workers  are 
perhaps  too  elegant  for  reality  as  his  float- 
ing figures  are  too  graceful  for  allegory.  There  is 
a  feeling  that  there  is  not  enough  mental  grip 
about  them.  It  is  paradoxical  to  say  that 
the  decoration  is  too  decorative,  but  that  states 
the  case  quite  rightly.  The  pattern  and  the  color 
that  set  off  an  easel  picture  appropriately  fail  to 
carry  when  employed  on  so  vast  a  scale  of  wall 
decoration — fail  to  carry  from  slieer  attenuation 
of  motive  and  design.  The  Pittsburgh  decora- 
tion has  not  enough  strength  behind  it  to  spread 
over  five  thousand  feet  of  painted  surface. 
Strength  was  never  a  (luality  of  Alexander's 
art.    lie   had    skill,    grace,    refinement,    charm, 


240  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

style,  but  he  never  attempted  to  win  by  force 
or  power. 

After  his  return  from  Paris  in  1901  he  took  up 
his  permanent  residence  in  New  York  and  im- 
mediately entered  into  the  art  life  of  the  city 
and  the  country.  He  had  received  gold  medals 
at  Paris  and  St.  Louis  and  the  Legion  of  Honor 
from  France,  had  placed  his  pictures  in  public 
galleries  all  the  way  from  St.  Petersburg  and 
Odessa  to  Chicago,  and  had  become  a  member 
of  some  twenty  art  societies.  In  addition  to  the 
McDowell  Club  and  the  School  Art  League  he 
was  the  head  of  the  Federation  of  Fine  Arts,  the 
Society  of  Mural  Painters,  and  from  1909  the 
president  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design. 
His  interest  in  art  movements  was  great  and  the 
energy  he  gave  to  them  was  at  the  expense  not 
only  of  his  painting  but  his  health.  As  presi- 
dent of  the  Academy  of  Design  his  devotion  was 
unflagging  even  though  it  met  with  almost  every- 
thing but  encouragement  and  success.  Dur- 
ing his  presidency  he  took  up  anew  the  prob- 
lem of  a  building  site  which  had  been  drag- 
ging along  for  years.  There  had  been  failure  in 
Fifty-seventh  Street  in  1896,  and  over  the 
Lenox  Library  plot  in  1904,  but  Alexander 
failed  four  further  times  with  the  sites  of 
the  Arsenal,  the  Central  Park,  Bryant  Park, 
and  the  Railroad  Yard. 

This  with  many  other  burdens  he  was  carrying 
helped  to  wear  him  out.  He  had  never  been  ro- 


JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER  241 

bust.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  of  deHcate,  refined 
physique  and  possessed  of  a  mental  energy  that 
far  outran  his  bodily  strength.  Moreover,  he 
never  knew  how  to  spare  himself.  In  his  last 
years  with  many  overhead  burdens  to  carry  he 
could  still  take  on  new  enterprises.  At  Onteora, 
where  he  had  a  summer  home,  he  became  much 
interested  in  costuming  and  decorative  settings 
for  the  theatre,  and  later,  with  Mrs.  Alexander, 
made  many  designs  for  Miss  Maude  Adams's 
productions  of  "Jeanne  d'Arc,"  "Peter  Pan," 
"Chantecler,"  and  "The  Little  Minister."  In 
New  York  he  presided  over  the  National  Insti- 
tute of  Arts  and  Letters,  spoke  at  every  gather- 
ing of  art  people,  and  was  at  the  beck  and  call 
of  society  whenever  anything  of  an  artistic  na- 
ture was  desired.  At  the  last — that  is,  in  1915 — 
death  came  to  him  quite  suddenly. 

Both  socially  and  artistically  Alexander  had 
become  a  man  of  distinction.  Every  one  liked 
his  refined,  gentlemanly  personality,  admired 
his  art,  and  listened  to  his  counsel.  For  these 
reasons  and  because  of  his  commanding  posi- 
tion he  came  to  have  a  strong  influence  in  all 
art  matters.  He  had  set  a  pattern  that  many  of 
the  younger  painters  followed,  and,  like  Chase, 
had  helped  to  establish  the  latter-day  tradition 
of  craftsmanship  here  in  America.  It  was  not  the 
exact  craftsmanship  of  Chase  or  Alexander  or 
Sargent  that  was  established,  though  each  of 
them  has  had  his  imitators.  The  movement  for 


242  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

sound  technical  education  in  American  art  was 
of  no  one  painter's  devising.  The  three  were 
typical  of  the  movement,  but  there  were  others 
— ^Weir,  Twachtman,  Beckwith,  Blum,  Brush, 
Thayer,  Dewing,  Cox,  Blashfield — ^who  were  of 
the  same  faith  and  who  added  their  quota  of 
strength.  All  of  them  working  together,  with  a 
common  energy  and  enthusiasm,  have  created 
a  body  of  belief  as  to  what  constitutes  style  and 
skill  in  art.  They  have  established  a  tradition 
based  in  sound  craftsmanship  than  which  noth- 
ing could  be  safer  or  better  for  the  future  of 
American  art.  It  was  Alexander's  part  to  help 
lay  the  foundation-stones.  War  or  national  mad- 
ness or  economic  change  may  prevent  any 
splendid  palace  of  art  arising  therefrom,  but  at 
least  Alexander  and  his  contemporaries  builded 
the  firm  foundation — ^builded  perhaps  better 
than  they  knew. 


X 

JOHN   S.    SARGENT 


X 

JOHN  S.   SARGENT 

The  major  events  in  Mr.  Sargent's  life  as  we 
read  them  or  hear  them  told  to-day  seem  in 
no  way  striking  or  startling.  He  has  moved 
along  well-trodden  paths,  in  a  well-ordered  ca- 
reer, responsive  always  to  the  teaching  of  his 
youth,  and  reflective  of  his  social  and  intellectual 
surroundings.  He  did  not  wholly  achieve  art,  for 
some  of  it  was  born  to  him  and  some  of  it,  per- 
haps, was  thrust  upon  him.  He  came  to  it  early, 
grew  up  in  its  atmosphere,  and  was  under  its 
spell  at  an  impressionable  age.  Which  is  to  say 
that  he  is  not  a  self-made  painter  in  the  Inness- 
Wyant  sense,  but  something  of  a  traditional 
painter  in  the  La  Farge  sense.  Training  started 
him  aright,  but  his  great  success  is,  of  course, 
not  wholly  due  to  that.  Genius  alone  can  account 
for  the  remarkable  content  of  his  work. 

He  was  born  in  Florence  in  1856.  His  parents 
were  Americans  residing  in  Italy  at  the  time  of 
his  birth.  The  father  was  from  Gloucester, 
Massachusetts,  and  had  studied  medicine  in 
Pliiladelphia,  afterward  remaining  in  the  latter 
city  to  practise  his  profession.  He  had  met  and 
married  a  Miss  Singer  of  an  old  Philadelphia 
family,  and  later  they  had  gone  to  Florence  to 

245 


246  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

live.  Legally,  therefore,  the  painter  is  an  Ameri- 
can, but  the  legal  tie  is  about  all  that  binds  him 
to  us.  We  like  to  claim  him  because  he  is 
a  celebrity,  but  in  reality  he  is  an  American 
only  in  a  nominal  way.  He  was  not  reared 
or  educated  here,  he  has  not  lived  here,  he  has 
not  fought  in  our  quarrels  or  failed  in  our 
failures  or  succeeded  in  our  successes.  The 
greater  part  of  his  life  has  been  passed  abroad 
amid  other  scenes  and  other  peoples.  As  a  boy  he 
travelled  about  Europe  with  his  parents,  speak- 
ing German  as  his  first  acquired  language,  if 
I  report  him  aright,  and  gaining  the  bulk  of  his 
schooling  in  Italy  and  Germany.  At  eighteen  he 
went  to  Paris  and  entered  the  atelier  of  Carolus 
Duran — ^at  that  time  perhaps  the  most  famous 
of  the  French  portrait-painters.  It  was  not  until 
1876,  when  Sargent  was  twenty  years  old,  that 
he  saw  the  shores  of  the  United  States.  That 
was  his  first  visit.  He  did  not  stay  for  any  length 
of  time,  and  what  were  his  impressions  of  the 
land  and  the  people  we  do  not  know.  Several 
times  since  then  he  has  been  here  for  short  peri- 
ods, but  one  or  another  of  the  large  European 
capitals  has  been  his  residence.  Since  1884 
his  permanent  abiding-place  has  been  London, 
though  he  lived  for  a  time  in  Paris,  and  just  now 
(1918)  he  is  again  here  in  America. 
It  would  seem  then  that  however  much  pride 
we  may  take  in  Sargent's  achievements  we  can 
hardly  be  proud  because  he  is  peculiarly  our 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  247 

own.  He  is  not  American  in  the  sense  of  knowing 
the  land  and  the  people  and  reflecting  our  life 
and  civilization.  Just  as  little  has  his  birth  in 
Italy  made  him  Italian  or  his  residence  in  France 
and  England  made  him  French  or  English.  No 
country  can  claim  him,  no  people  can  appropriate 
him,  for  in  reality  he  is  a  citizen  of  the  world  at 
large — the  manner  of  man  we  sometimes  call 
a  cosmopolite.  If  there  is  one  place  above  an- 
other that  he  can  be  traced  to  and  said  to 
emanate  from  it  is  Paris;  and  Paris  is  no  longer 
merely  the  first  city  of  France.  It,  too,  has  be- 
come cosmopolitan — ^the  centre  of  modern  life 
and  the  gathering-place  of  the  world's  knowl- 
edge, intelligence,  and  fashion.  Sargent  reflects 
its  taste  and  its  skill,  but  not  anything  else  that 
is  peculiarly  French,  not  anything  that  smacks 
of  the  French  soil.  The  accomplishments  of 
Paris  are  his,  but  without  the  sentiment  or  the 
feeling  that  is  French. 

It  is  questionable  if  a  man  who  is  equally  at 
home  in  London,  Paris,  Florence,  and  New  York 
will  or  can  have  a  very  strong  sentiment  about 
any  one  of  those  places.  He  can  hardly  spend  a 
winter  in  the  United  States  and  become  vitally 
interested  in  democracy,  and  the  next  winter 
go  to  England  and  fall  deeply  in  love  with  aris- 
tocracy. Nor  can  he  live  for  a  few  months  in 
Spain  or  Germany  and  penetrate  to  the  quick 
the  life  and  character  of  its  people.  The  cos- 
mopolite who  moves  hither  and  yon  about  the 


248  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

globe  hardly  ever  takes  to  heart  the  affairs  and 
interests  of  those  with  whom  he  is  temporarily 
sojourning.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  rather  his 
attitude  of  mind  that  nothing  is  to  be  taken  too 
seriously.  To  ruffle  one's  composure  with  an 
emotion  or  to  worry  one's  self  about  a  sentiment 
is  the  very  thing  he  seeks  to  avoid.  He  accepts 
the  facts  as  facts,  concerns  himself  with  the 
appearance  of  things,  is  a  stickler  for  the  rejfine- 
ments,  and  a  great  student  of  manners,  methods, 
and  styles.  He  quickly  absorbs  whatsoever  is 
artistic  or  intelligent  or  learned,  his  perceptions 
are  very  acute,  his  knowledge  and  manner  are 
polished  to  the  last  degree;  but  the  strong  feel- 
ing that,  after  all,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  great 
endeavor  finds  no  utterance  in  his  work,  and  the 
national  beliefs  that  are  really  the  insistent  and 
persistent  things  in  both  literature  and  art  are 
not  the  mainspring  of  his  action. 

So  much  may  be  said  in  a  general  way  about  the 
painter  we  are  considering;  and  so  much  with- 
out a  thought  of  either  praise  or  blame.  Mr. 
Sargent's  life  has  been  the  result  of  peculiar 
circumstances — fortunate  circumstances  some 
may  think,  or  perhaps  unfortunate,  as  others 
may  hold.  At  least  they  have  been  instrumental 
in  bringing  forth  an  accomplished  painter  whose 
art  no  one  can  fail  to  admire.  That  his  work 
may  be  admired  understandingly  it  is  quite 
necessary  to  comprehend  the  personality  of  the 
artist — to  understand  his  education,  his  associa- 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  249 

tions,  his  artistic  and  social  environments. 
For  if  the  man  himself  is  cosmopolitan  his  art 
is  not  less  so.  It  is  the  perfection  of  world-style, 
the  finality  of  method.  It  is  learned  to  an  ex- 
traordinary degree,  accurate,  scientific,  almost 
faultless;  but  it  belongs  to  no  country,  reflects 
no  people,  discloses  no  sentiment,  and  causes  no 
emotion.  It  is  calmly  intellectual  and  begets 
enthusiasm  only  for  its  absolute  truthfulness  to 
appearance  and  the  brilliant  facility  of  its 
achievement. 

To  behold  and  to  accomplish — ^that  is  to  see 
and  to  paint — seem  to  have  been  Sargent's  am- 
bition from  the  start.  What  gave  his  original 
impetus  toward  art  is  not  disclosed,  but  his 
mother  was  a  clever  person  with  water-colors, 
and  she  may  have  prompted  his  interest  in  paint- 
ing. At  any  rate,  he  early  became  proficient  in 
drawing.  As  a  boy,  sketching  in  the  Tyrol, 
Leighton  saw  his  work  and  remarked  its  skill. 
Later  on  he  was  entered  as  a  pupil  in  the  schools 
of  the  Florence  Academy.  Travelling  at  vaca- 
tion times  with  his  parents  he  saw  many  pictures 
and  doubtless  studied  the  old  masters  from  many 
angles.  Everywhere  among  the  Renaissance 
painters  he  must  have  remarked  the  skilled 
craftsman,  and  perhaps  his  early  aspirations  were 
to  excel  as  they  had  excelled.  Certainly  it  was 
with  no  little  knowledge  of  drawing  that  he  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  Paris  atelier  of  Carolus 
Duran  in  1874,  aged  eighteen. 


250  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

Carroll  Beckwith,  one  of  the  earliest  and 
best-loved  of  the  pupils  in  the  atelier  and  a  life- 
long friend  of  Sargent,  has  often  told  me  the 
ston^  of  Sargent's  arrival.  He  came  with  his 
father,  and  when  Beckwith  opened  the  door  he 
found  a  refined-looking  gentleman  and  a  tall, 
thin  son  standing  there.  Beckwith,  as  the 
massicr  of  the  class,  presented  the  pair  to  the 
master.  The  portfolio  of  sketches,  which  Sar- 
gent had  under  his  arm,  was  presently  examined, 
with  the  class  forming  an  admiring  half-circle 
at  the  back.  It  is  reported  that  Carolus  observed 
that  the  nouveau  had  much  to  imleam,  but 
Beckwith  says  the  class  was  astonished  at  the 
pencil-drawings  and  the  facility  of  the  water- 
colors.  The  nouveau  was  accepted  by  the  master 
and  was  a  marked  success  from  the  start. 

Carolus  was  a  good  teacher  after  his  kind  and 
impressed  his  method  upon  Sargent,  who  ac- 
cepted and  bettered  it.  The  method  in  brief  did 
not  start  with  the  carefully  prepared  sketch  of 
Ingres  or  even  a  charcoal-drawing  upon  the 
canvas,  but  a  full  brush  of  color  laid  on  in  mass. 
Pupils  were  to  draw,  model,  paint  at  one  and  the 
same  time.  In  blocking  in  a  figure  the  paint 
might  be  thick  and  the  edges  at  first  sharp,  but 
the  values,  the  tone,  the  properly  constructed 
bodv  were  to  be  absolute.  Underlvin^  structure 
was  a  necessity.  Sargent  learned  that  early  in 
his  career  and  never  forgot  it.  His  brush-work 
has  been  thought  his  greatest  technical  feature, 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  251 

but  that  of  itself  would  be  for  nothing  holden  did 
it  not  by  its  certainty  produce  absolute  draw- 
ing. He  has  always  been  a  consummate  drafts- 
man. 

Yet  it  was  Carolus  who  taught  facihty  and  ease 
with  the  brush  and  preached  Velasquez  to  his 
pupils.  Xo  doubt  the  master  saw  great  quahties 
in  the  Spaniard  where  his  pupils  saw  only  great 
dexterity,  but  at  any  rate  their  attention  was 
called  to  the  fact  that  a  picture  may  be  made 
interesting  in  its  surface  and  be  the  better 
therefor.  Sargent  was  a  quick  convert  to  this 
idea,  and  he  vers*  soon  developed  a  breadth  and 
truth  of  brush-work  that  astonished  his  master 
and  set  Paris  talking.  All  his  life  it  has  been  one 
of  the  pronounced  features  of  his  technique,  and 
yet  not  a  feature  by  which  his  art  stands  or  falls. 
One  of  his  latest  portraits — that  of  Henrs- 
James — does  not  noticeably  show  it.  The  sur- 
face is  almost  smooth  so  inconspicuous  is  the 
brushing,  and  yet  there  are  few  who  will  not 
count  the  James  as  one  of  the  best  considered, 
cleanest  cut,  and  most  profound  of  Sargent's 
portraits. 

He  remained  under  Carolus  for  several  years, 
assisted  the  master  in  some  of  his  decorations, 
and  soon  began  to  produce  noteworthy  work  of 
his  own.  One  of  his  earliest  portraits  was  that  of 
Carolus  himself,  which  at  once  became  talked 
about,  not  only  as  a  likeness  of  the  famous 
master  but  as  the  work  of  a  remarkable  pupil. 


252  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

In  1878  he  painted  En  route  your  la  peche,  a 
figure  composition  which  attracted  much  atten- 
tion in  the  Salon.  The  next  year  he  went  to  Spain, 
and  from  that  journey  came  "El  Jaleo,"  now  in 
the  Boston  Museum,  and  a  number  of  other 
Spanish  pictures.  These  theme  pictures,  much  as 
they  were  praised,  did  not,  could  not,  determine 
the  painter's  bent.  Like  other  young  men,  he 
probably  had  determined  nothing,  and  eventu- 
ally let  circumstances  settle  the  matter  of  sub- 
ject. He  did  not  have  to  wait  long.  In  1881  he 
put  out  a  full-length  portrait  called  a  "Lady  with 
Rose"  that  had  so  much  vitality  about  it,  as 
well  as  charm,  that  it  far  outran  all  his  earlier 
performances.  The  success  of  it,  followed  by 
the  "Hall  of  the  Four  Children,"  in  which 
four  of  the  Beit  children  were  shown,  and  then 
the  portrait  of  "Madame  G ,"  seemed  au- 
tomatically to  place  him  among  the  portraitists. 
The  last-named  picture,  a  full-length  in  profile, 
now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  set  all  Paris 
by  the  ears.  The  wonderful  if  somewhat  sharp 
drawing  of  the  face  and  head,  the  equally  fine 
portraiture  of  the  hands,  arms,  figure,  and  dress, 
commanded  instant  attention.  The  subject  was  a 
great  beauty,  and  the  painter,  painting  precisely 
what  he  saw,  had  dealt  with  her  remorselessly. 
Even  then  they  began  to  discuss  Sargent  as  a 
character  reader,  an  anatomist,  a  psychologist, 
a  physiognomist — ^great  nonsense  to  be  sure, 
but  nevertheless  suggestive  of  his  remarkable 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  253 

truth  of  observation.  It  was  perhaps  this  very 
quahty  that  soon  brought  him  more  commissions 
for  portraits  than  he  could  fill  and  possibly  led 
to  the  virtual  abandonment  for  the  time  being 
of  other  themes. 

In  taking  up  portraiture  as  the  field  of  his  en- 
deavor Sargent  was  perhaps  wise  as  well  as 
fortunate,  for  it  requires  the  keen,  cool  observer, 
the  man  who  can  record  the  fact  without  ro- 
mance, to  make  a  good  portrait-painter;  and 
Sargent  has  proved  himself  an  observer  above 
all.  He  is  not  a  poet  in  paint,  nor  does  he  indulge 
in  sentiment,  feeling,  or  emotion.  He  records 
the  fact.  If  I  apprehend  him  rightly,  such 
theory  of  art  as  he  possesses  is  founded  in  ob- 
servation. One  night  in  Gibraltar  some  fifteen 
years  ago  I  was  dining  with  him  at  the  old  Cecil 
Hotel.  We  had  been  on  ship  for  a  dozen  days  and 
were  glad  to  get  ashore.  That  night,  as  a  very 
unusual  thing,  Sargent  talked  about  painting 
— talked  of  his  own  volition.  He  suggested  his 
theory  of  art  in  a  single  sentence:  "You  see 
things  that  way"  (pointing  sliglitly  to  the  left) 
"and  I  see  them  this  way"  (pointing  sliglith^  to 
the  right).  He  seemed  to  think  tliat  would  ac- 
count for  the  variation  or  peculiarity  of  eye 
and  mind,  and,  with  a  manner  of  doing — a 
personal  method — there  was  little  more  to  art. 
Such  a  theory  would  place  him  in  measured 
agreement  with  Henry  James,  wliose  definition 
of  art  has  been  quoted  many  times:  "Art  is  a 


254  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

point  of  view  and  genius  a  way  of  looking  at 
things."  But  whether  Sargent  has  followed 
James,  or  James  followed  Sargent,  in  that  def- 
inition, I  am  not  able  to  record. 

James,  however,  did  not  stop  on  that  precise 
line.  In  1887  in  writing  about  Sargent  he  said: 
"The  highest  result  is  attained  when  to  the 
element  of  quick  perception  a  certain  faculty 
of  lingering  reflection  is  added,"  and  he  con- 
tinued, "I  mean  the  quality  in  the  light  of  which 
the  artist  sees  deep  into  his  subject,  under- 
goes it,  absorbs  it,  discovers  in  it  new  things 
that  were  not  on  the  surface,  becomes  patient 
with  it,  and  almost  reverent,  and,  in  short,  ele- 
vates and  humanizes  the  technical  problems." 
James  certainly  meant  by  that  sympathy,  deep 
human  interest,  if  not  sentiment,  feeling,  and 
emotion;  but  Sargent  never  showed  these  quali- 
ties in  his  work  and  has  more  than  once  re- 
pudiated them  by  word  of  mouth.  It  is  a  popular 
contention  that  he  does  see  "new  things  that 
were  not  on  the  surface,"  that  he  is  a  character 
reader;  and  that  he  is  a  bitter  satirist  in  paint. 
Again  the  painter  has  denied  these  alleged  ac- 
complishments,  and  with  some  warmth  into 
the  bargain. 

Frank  Millet  told  me  years  ago  that  Sargent, 
painting  at  Broadway,  England,  needed  a  white 
marble  column  in  a  picture  he  was  then  working 
upon.  There  was  none  at  hand,  but,  at  Millet's 
suggestion,  he  got  a  carpenter  to  make  a  wooden 


JOHN  S.   SARGENT  255 

column  and  had  it  painted  a  clean  white.  This  was 
set  up  and  Sargent  tried  to  paint  it  in  the  pic- 
ture as  a  marble  column,  but  with  the  unexpected 
result  that  on  the  canvas  it  looked  not  like  mar- 
ble but  like  a  wooden  column  painted  white. 
He  could  not  get  below  "the  surface,"  though  he 
tried  to  do  so.  And  Kenyon  Cox  in  a  strikingly 
just  estimate  of  Sargent*  tells  this  story:  "He 
had  painted  a  portrait  in  which  he  was  thought 
to  have  brought  out  the  inner  nature  of  his 
sitter,  and  to  have  'seen  through  the  veil'  of  the 
external  man.  WTien  asked  about  it  he  is  said 
to  have  expressed  some  amazement  at  the  idea, 
and  to  have  remarked:  'If  there  were  a  veil  I 
should  paint  the  veil;  I  can  paint  only  what  I 
see.'"  And  Cox  adds:  "Whether  he  said  it  or 
not,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  sentence 
expresses  the  truth."  It  does;  and  also  Sargent's 
self-imposed  limitation.  He  does  not  want  to  see 
below  the  surface;  he  thinks  the  surface  in  it- 
self, if  rightly  handled,  is  sufficient.  But  there 
is  an  explanation  that  may  reconcile  these 
different  contentions. 

A  painter  who  has  been  looking  at  human  heads 
for  many  years  sees  more  than  the  man  who 
casually  looks  up  to  recognize  an  acquaintance 
on  the  street.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  sees  more 
"character" — that  is  more  scholarship  or  con- 
ceit or  pride  of  purse  or  firmness  of  will  or 
shrewdness  of  tliought;   but  merely  that  he  sees 

*  Old  Masterts  and  Xcw,  by  Kcnj'ou  Cox,  New  York,  1905. 


256  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

the  physical  conformation  more  completely 
than  we  do.  Well,  every  one  sooner  or  later 
moulds  his  own  face.  It  becomes  marked  or  set 
or  shaped  in  response  to  continued  methods  of 
thinking  and  acting.  When  that  face  comes 
under  the  portrait-painter's  eye  he  does  not  see 
the  scholar,  the  banker,  the  senator,  the  cap- 
tain of  industry;  but  he  does  see,  perhaps,  cer- 
tain depressions  of  the  cheek  or  lines  about  the 
eyes  or  mouth  or  contractions  of  the  lips  or 
protrusions  of  the  brow  or  jaw  that  appeal  to 
him  strongly  because  they  are  cast  in  shadow 
or  thrown  up  sharply  in  relief  of  light.  These 
surface  features  he  paints  perhaps  with  more  em- 
phasis than  they  possess  in  the  original  because 
they  appeal  to  him  emphatically,  and  presently 
the  peculiar  look  that  indicates  the  character  of 
the  man  appears.  What  the  look  may  indicate, 
or  w  hat  kind  or  phase  of  character  may  be  read 
in  or  out  of  the  look,  the  portrait-painter  does 
not  usually  know^  or  care.  It  is  not  his  business  to 
know.  He  paints  what  he  sees  and  has  as  little 
discernment  of  a  character  as  of  a  mind.  He 
gives,  perhaps  without  knowing  their  meaning, 
certain  protrusions  and  recessions  of  the  sur- 
face before  him  and  lets  the  result  tell  what 
tale  it  may. 

In  the  production  of  the  portrait  accurate 
observation  is  more  than  half  the  battle.  If  a 
painter  sees  and  knows  his  subject  thoroughly, 
he  \^"ill  have  little  trouble  in  telling  what  he 


Mrs.  I'ulilzcr."  l)v  .loliii  S.  Sarm'iil. 


JOHN  S.   SARGENT  257 

sees  and  knows;  and  to  say  of  Sargent  that  he 
observes  rightly  and  records  truly  is  to  state 
the  case  in  a  sentence.  Nothing  in  the  physical 
presence  escapes  hun.  The  slight  inclination  of  a 
head,  the  shyness  of  a  glance,  the  mobility  of  a 
mouth,  the  uneasiness  of  a  hand,  the  nervous 
strain  of  a  gesture  are  all  turned  to  account  in 
the  ultimate  result.  Every  tone  of  color  in  itself 
and  in  its  relation  to  the  other  tones,  every  light 
in  its  relation  to  its  shadow  and  to  the  other 
lights,  every  melting  contour  in  contrast  with 
every  accented  contour,  and  every  texture  in 
relation  to  every  other  texture — ^all  are  caught 
within  the  angle  of  the  painter's  focus. 

His  portraits  are  the  complete  demonstration 
of  his  observation.  They  may  not  be  all  that 
could  be  wished  for  in  soul,  but  they  are  not 
lacking  in  physical  life — in  that  which  can  be 
seen.  You  will  not  be  able  to  look  into  the  eyes 
and  seem  to  know  the  inner  consciousness  of 
the  sitter,  as  in  a  portrait  by  Rembrandt  (the 
*  soul"  is  Rembrandt's,  not  the  sitter's) ;  but  you 
will  feel  the  bodily  presence,  the  physical  fact, 
as  you  do  in  a  portrait  by  Frans  Hals.  There  is 
the  Marquand  portrait  at  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  to  which  reference  may  be  made. 
How  well  he  has  emphasized  the  facts  of  the 
spare  figure,  the  refined  if  somewhat  wear}^  face  ! 
How  very  effective  the  placing  of  tlie  figure  in 
the  chair,  the  turn  of  the  head,  and  that  thin 
hand    against    which    the    head    rests.    Every 


258  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

physical  feature  is  just  as  it  should  be.  Look  at 
the  bone  structure  of  the  forehead,  the  setting 
of  the  eyes,  the  protrusion  of  the  lower  lip, 
the  modelling  of  the  mouth  and  chin.  Could 
anything  be  more  positive !  The  painter  has 
given  you  only  what  he  has  seen,  but  can  you 
not  get  out  of  these  physical  features — even 
from  the  thin,  patrician  hand — some  indication 
of  the  man's  character.^  The  painter  does  give 
the  character  of  the  sitter  but  not  in  the  way 
the  populace  supposes.  The  effort  is  not  con- 
scious. The  character  is  merely  the  result  of 
accurately  seeing  and  drawing  the  surface  ap- 
pearance. 

All  Sargent's  portraits  of  men  are  revelations 
of  things  seen  and  they  are  all  based  on  the 
physical  presence.  The  *' Speaker  Reed"  and 
the  "Mr.  Chamberlain"  are  likenesses  of  men 
in  the  flesh,  done  apparently  without  a  thought 
of  their  being  statesmen.  There  is  nothing  of  the 
official  about  them  and  you  would  not  be  able 
to  say  that  they  were  political  leaders.  They  did 
not  look  the  politician  in  life  and  the  painter 
would  not  go  behind  the  facial  report.  Some- 
times a  knowledge  of  what  the  man  really  was 
may  have  proved  bothersome  to  him.  He  told 
me  in  1903  that  he  had  done  very  little  satis- 
factory work  that  year  with  portraits  of  officials 
at  Washington.  He  liked  his  head  of  "General 
Leonard  Wood"  and  was  much  interested  in  the 
type,  but  the  standing  portrait  of  "President 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  259 

Roosevelt"  he  did  not  think  any  too  successful. 
The  "President  Wilson"  done  in  1917  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  Roosevelt  portrait  and  probably 
both  were  handicapped  by  shortness  of  time — 
insufficient  time  for  complete  observation.  But 
aside  from  being  hurried,  the  thought  that  he 
was  painting  people  high  in  office  and  much  was 
expected  of  him,  must  have  had  a  deterrent 
effect  upon  his  brush.  For  he  could  no  more 
paint  the  office  than  he  could  paint  behind  the 
"veil"  or  get  at  the  "soul."  John  Hay,  Edwin 
Booth,  Richard  M.  Hunt  were  very  distin- 
guished characters,  but  Sargent  had  no  recipe 
for  painting  distinction  and  had  to  paint  what 
was  before  him.  The  result  was  that  the  Hay 
and  the  Hunt  were  in  no  way  remarkable  por- 
traits, whereas  the  Booth  was  exceptionally  fine. 
It  was  not  the  characters  that  Booth  had  played 
but  his  own  gentle,  refined  nature  that  had  left 
its  mark  upon  his  face.  Sargent  saw  it  readily 
enough  and  had  no  need  to  plough  beneath  the 
surface  for  it. 

His  method  of  procedure  with  women's  por- 
traits is  not  different  from  that  of  men.  He  seeks 
the  personal  presence,  sees  keenly  every  physical 
peculiarity,  and  gives  as  truthfully  as  is  con- 
sistent with  pigments  the  facts  as  he  sees  them. 
There  is  no  romance  of  mood,  no  reflective  mus- 
ing, no  idealizing  or  prettifying  of  the  likeness. 
All  phases  of  fashionable  life  have  come  to  his 
studio  and  he  has  painted  a  host  of  social  celeb- 


2G0  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

rities,  some  of  them  more  worthy  of  his  brush 
than  others.  Many  times  he  has  painted  the 
grand  lady  in  flashing  jewels  and  gorgeous  robes 
and  been  accused  of  vulgarity  in  the  doing  of  it. 
But  the  accusation  will  not  hold.  The  vulgarity 
has  been  in  the  sitter  and  has  been  shown  by  the 
painter  without  feeling  or  perhaps  quite  un- 
consciously. Many  times  the  lady,  the  robes,  and 
the  jewels  have  been  given  without  a  suspicion 
of  vulgarity  because  there  was  none  in  the  model. 
That  wondrous  creation  that  appeared  in  the 
Salon  so  many  years  ago — the  tall  lady  in  the 
magenta  gown — ^was  something  bordering  on  the 
bizarre;  it  w^as  flashing,  glittering,  noisy,  but 
not  unrefined  in  any  sense.  The  portrait  of 
"Miss  Terry  as  Lady  Macbeth"  is  ^'stagey," 
as  perhaps  it  should  be,  for  again  the  staginess 
was  before  the  painter;  but  surely  it  is  not  want- 
ing in  taste.  And  for  refinement,  distinction, 
sensitiveness,  what  could  be  better  than  the 
beautiful  portrait  of  "Lady  Agnew".^  "Whatever 
may  be  the  qualities  or  defects  of  the  sitter, 
Sargent  may  be  trusted  to  record  the  facts  be- 
fore him  exactly  as  they  are,  and  let  the  burden 
of  their  explanation  fall  on  the  friends  or  the 
family,  if  it  must. 

His  successes  in  other  fields  of  painting  than 
portraiture  are  due  to  the  same  keenness  of 
observation  and  are  perhaps  merely  manifes- 
tations of  the  portrait  instinct.  The  lovely 
"Carnation  Lily  Lily  Rose"  is  little  more  than 


'Caniation  I>ily.  I>ily  Itosc,""  hy  -loliii  S.  SariiCiit. 

1m  th.'  Nali. .11^,1  (;allcrv  .if  lirilisli  Arl,  l,,.ii.l,in. 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  261 

the  portrait  of  two  little  girls  lighting  Chinese 
lanterns  in  a  flower-garden.  It  is  of  course  care- 
fully arranged,  and  told  with  great  beauty  of 
color  and  light;  but  the  painting  of  the  lilies 
shows  the  same  exactness  of  observation  that 
characterizes  the  faces.  They  are  portraits  of 
lilies.  "  Carmencita "  is  again  a  portrait  of  a 
dancing-girl  in  costume,  with  powder  on  her 
face  and  rouge  on  her  lips.  She  has  paused  a 
moment  from  dancing  and  is  breathing  quickly 
and  Sargent  chose  that  moment  to  paint  her. 
Ilis  Venetian  scenes,  including  the  later  water- 
colors,  are  again  portraits  of  places  just  as  his 
alhgators  lying  in  the  mud,  or  his  "St.  Jerome" 
lying  in  the  wood,  or  his  marble  quarries  lying 
in  the  sun  are  striking  likenesses  of  the  objects 
themselves.  They  are  all  treated  in  the  por- 
trait spirit — that  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  an 
observer  and  a  recorder  rather  than  a  rhapso- 
dist  or  a  lover.  Sargent  does  not  rhapsodize,  at 
least  not  in  his  works.  The  decoration  in  the 
Boston  Public  Library  is  possibly  an  exception. 
It  evidently  cost  the  painter  much  time  and 
thought,  but  the  symbolism  of  it  bewilders  and 
its  excellence  lies  less  in  meaning  or  appropriate- 
ness than  in  masterful  execution.  It  does  not 
enthrall  or  sway  or  charm;  it  astonishes  by  the 
brilliancy  of  its  coloring  and  the  supreme  ex- 
cellence of  its  workmanship.  It  is  something  that 
one  marvels  over  but  cannot  fall  in  love  with. 
And  the  most  satisfactory  part  of  It  Is  perhaps 


262  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

the  panel  of  the  prophets,  which  is  essentially 
portraiture  again — that  is,  something  painted 
from  the  model. 

If  I  have  not  misstated  the  case  it  would  seem 
as  though  Sargent's  painting  could  be  epito- 
mized as  nature  plus  an  eye  and  a  hand,  external 
nature  at  that.  He  has  never  pretended  or  sug- 
gested that  he  delves  beneath  the  surface,  that 
he  dreams  or  poetizes  or  evokes  loveliness  out 
of  his  inner  consciousness  and  infuses  it  into  his 
canvases.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  has  even  indulged  to 
any  great  extent  in  that  elevation  of  the  tech- 
nical problem  by  long  reflection  which  Henry 
James  refers  to.  From  sheer  truth  of  observa- 
tion his  children,  as  in  the  "Carnation  Lily 
Lily  Rose"  or  the  *' Beatrice,"  are  childlike, 
and  perhaps  shy,  his  young  women  graceful  and 
possibly  nervous  or  affected,  his  men  forceful, 
mentally  alert,  occasionally  posing  for  posterity. 
He  tells  the  truth  and  knows  not  how  to  do 
otherwise.  How  radically  different  in  result  are 
the  portraits  of  Lady  Ian  Hamilton,  Mrs. 
Pulitzer,  Mrs.  Marquand,  of  Colonel  Bruce, 
Mr.  Chase,  and  Mr.  Rockefeller !  Yet  who  that 
has  known  the  originals  will  say  that  they  are 
not  true  to  the  originals  ! 

A  limitation !  Yes,  but  what  artist  has  not 
limited  his  endeavors !  It  is  by  not  trying  to  do 
everything  that  occasionally  one  succeeds  in 
doing  something.  And  if  in  painting  one  chooses 
to  be  a  recorder  of  facts  rather  than  a  concocter 


'( 'arinciicitn.""  I)v 

1.1   111.'   I,n\.-n, 


I  111  >.  >;ii': 

■:-.    I':.rl-. 


JOHN   S.   SARGENT  263 

of  fiction,  why  should  we  grieve  !  How  very  little 
Sargent  can  concoct  anything,  even  composi- 
tion, is  apparent  in  his  group-portraits  of  two  or 
three  people — the  Misses  Hunter,  for  an  exam- 
ple. The  pattern  bothered  him,  he  could  not  "ar- 
range" the  sitters  satisfactorily,  and,  finally 
having  crowded  them  into  the  canvas,  he 
painted  them  as  he  saw  them,  with  the  result 
that  they  look  crowded.  The  fresco  at  Boston 
is  decorative,  to  be  sure,  by  virtue  of  its  color- 
ing and  gilding,  but  as  a  composition  it  will 
hardly  pass  muster.  It  is  a  curious  gathering  of 
jewel-like  hues,  but  it  can  make  small  pretense 
to  a  satisfactory  mural  composition.  Sargent 
has  never  demonstrated  great  ability  in  arrange- 
ment, and  so  far  as  the  public  knows  has  never 
tried  for  historical  composition. 
The  portrait  of  the  single  figure  is  his  greatest 
success.  Placing  it  upon  the  canvas  calls  for  no 
great  imagination  or  change  in  the  model; 
and  the  opportunity  for  good  drawing — his 
strongest  technical  accomplishment  perhaps — 
is  present.  How  well  he  draws  !  His  light  is  in  no 
way  remarkable;  it  lacks  subtlety,  mystery, 
and  all  that  cookery  of  the  brush  whereby  light 
and  shade  are  distorted  and  made  to  suggest  the 
existence  of  things  unseen;  but  his  drawing  is 
so  profound  that  at  times  it  is  almost  uncanny. 
It  is  impossible  to  separate  it  from  the  swift 
handling  of  the  surface,  for  he  gets  the  underly- 
ing structure  and  the  overlying  texture  with  one 


264  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

and  the  same  stroke.  By  a  twist  of  the  brush  he 
may  give  drawing,  texture,  value,  hue,  all  at 
once.  In  this  respect — ^his  wonderful  facility 
with  the  brush — ^he  is  in  the  class  with  Ru- 
bens. 

It  is  this  latter  feature  of  his  work  that  excites 
the  greatest  admiration  of  his  fellow  artists. 
The  final  result  of  his  handling  is  to  give  one 
the  impression  of  work  done  easily,  in  fact, 
rather  improvised  than  premeditated.  But  the 
impression  is  somewhat  misleading.  Every  stroke 
is  calmly  calculated,  every  touch  is  coolly  de- 
signed. If  the  effect  looks  labored,  the  palette- 
knife  is  used  to  clean  the  canvas  and  the  work 
is  done  over  again.  Infinite  pains  are  taken  that 
infinite  pains  shall  not  appear.  There  is  no  ex- 
citement or  feverish  haste,  however  sw^ift  the 
brush  may  seem  to  travel.  The  nimble  hand 
obeys  a  w^ell-trained  mind,  and  if  the  work  is 
easily  and  accurately  done,  it  is  not  through 
any  burst  of  inspiration  or  preternatural  facil- 
ity of  the  moment,  but  through  long  and  care- 
ful training. 

Least  of  all  is  there  any  trickery  about  it.  The 
painting  is  just  plain  painting  with  ordinary 
canvases,  brushes,  and  pigments  squeezed  out 
of  lead  tubes.  It  is  the  simplest  and  most  di- 
rect kind  of  brushing.  Sargent  has  never  been 
led  astray  by  any  of  the  technical  phases  or 
crazes.    His    method    of    handling    is    perhaps 


JOHN   S.  SARGENT  265 

Parisian  though  it  harks  back  to  Hals,  Velas- 
quez, Goya,  Tiepolo,  without  exactly  resembling 
any  one  of  them.  In  its  fluid  quality  perhaps  it 
has  more  affinity  with  the  work  of  Rubens, 
though  again  there  is  no  positive  resemblance. 
It  is  Sargent's  own  way  of  expressing  himself. 

That  there  are  defects  attending  this  quality 
of  expressiveness  wull  not  be  denied,  but  they 
are  comparatively  unimportant.  In  the  simple 
spreading  of  wet  liquid  paint  certain  results  of 
depth  or  hue  or  texture  are  likely  to  be  sacri- 
ficed. Often  a  profound  shadow  depth  is  pro- 
duced by  repeated  glazings;  thumbing  and 
kneading  of  pigments  on  the  canvas  frequently 
result  in  a  quality  of  color  that  cannot  be  directly 
spread  with  a  brush;  and,  again,  there  are  pe- 
culiar effects  produced  by  underbasing  that  are 
not  obtainable  by  surface  manipulation.  Ken- 
yon  Cox  thinks  that  Sargent  perhaps  loses 
somewhat  in  textures  by  his  direct  method  and 
cites  as  illustration  his  flesh  painting. 

"The  sweeps  of  opaque  color  laid  on  with  a 
full  brush  are  apt  to  give  a  texture  as  of  drapery, 
no  matter  how  accurate  the  particular  tints  may 
be;  and  if  we  are  to  have  the  pleasure  of  in- 
stantaneous execution,  we  must  generally  ac- 
cept it  with  some  diminution  of  the  pleasure  de- 
rivable from  beautiful  flesh  painting.  .  .  .  In- 
deed, it  may  be  said  that  the  highest  beauty 
of  coloring  is  always  more  or  less  incompatible 


266  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

with  too  great  frankness  of  procedure  and 
demands  a  certain  reticence  and  mystery."* 

There  may  be,  probably  is,  considerable  truth 
in  that  statement  though  I  cannot  for  the  mo- 
ment get  away  from  Rubens — one  of  the  most 
direct  painters  in  all  art  and  yet  a  great  colorist 
and  a  splendid  painter  of  textures,  especially 
the  texture  of  flesh.  Sargent  is  no  such  colorist 
as  Rubens,  but  the  lack  is  perhaps  inherent  in 
the  man  rather  than  in  the  method.  At  the  same 
time  Mr.  Cox  is  right  in  degree.  Perhaps  the 
most  engaging  quality  of  flesh  coloring,  to  re- 
turn to  the  illustration,  can  be  obtained  only 
by  additions  and  overlayings  of  paint  which 
give  the  feeling  of  the  coloring  coming  up  from 
below  to  the  surface.  The  direct  method  will 
not  answer  save  in  the  hands  of  a  Rubens. 

But  the  end  justifies  the  means  with  Sargent. 
Precision  in  drawing  immediately  begins  to 
evaporate  when  one  starts  to  knead  or  over- 
lay the  surface;  and  to  weaken  Sargent's  ac- 
curacy in  drawing  would  be  to  imperil  his 
authority  and  dispel  such  a  thing  as  conviction. 
One  cannot  imagine  it.  If  he  should  now  de- 
liberately try  for  subtlety  or  depth  of  color  or 
seek  to  obtain  a  mysterious  or  illusory  or  en- 
amelled surface,  his  friends  in  art  would  imme- 
diately declare  him  in  decline  and  roll  their 
eyes  heavenward   in   despair.   But  fortunately 

*Ibid. 


JOHN  S.  SARGENT  267 

there  is  no  Immediate  prospect  of  such  a  thing. 
The  painter's  incHnation  seems  well  settled,  and 
neither  his  eye  nor  his  hand  has  lost  its  cunning. 
On  the  contrary,  since  he  practically  abandoned 
portrait-painting  more  than  a  dozen  years  ago 
and  turned  his  attention  to  landscape  and  effects 
of  direct  sunlight,  he  has  been  producing  the 
most  astonishing  pictures  of  his  career.  The 
things  that  he  sees  and  draws  would  have  been 
thought  as  wild  as  cubist  fancies  thirty  years  ago. 
And  yet  they  are  the  most  positive  pronounce- 
ments of  elemental  truths  that  he  has  yet  put 
forth. 
That  does  not  mean  that  there  is  anything 
weird  or  queer  about  these  later  doings.  They 
are  merely  appearances  of  form,  color,  and  light 
presented  with  astonishing  breadth,  force,  and 
simplicity.  Sargent  has  never  evidenced  any  lik- 
ing for  things  queer.  He  is  too  intelligent  for 
fads  and  fancies,  too  sane  for  mad  movements 
in  art.  There  is  not  the  slightest  indication  of 
impressionism,  futurism,  or  cubism  in  his  work. 
The  fashions  have  never  interested  him;  but 
style — the  best  way  of  presenting  a  thought 
or  theme — has  no  doubt  been  in  his  thought 
since  boyhood.  Perhaps  it  was  his  early  acquain- 
tance with  the  works  of  painters  like  Titian,  Tin- 
toretto, and  Paolo  Veronese  that  led  him  to  base 
his  own  style  in  largeness,  simplicity,  and  direct- 
ness, lie  could  not  have  built  on  a  better  founda- 


268  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

tion.  Wliatever  gimcrack  or  scrollwork  bad 
taste  may  add  at  the  top,  there  never  yet  has 
been  any  great  art  that  did  not  have  a  plain 
and  firm  foundation  at  the  bottom. 

And  in  these  days,  when  all  painting  seems 
going  to  the  dogs  with  new  and  incomprehensible 
conventions  put  forth  by  first  one  group  of 
painters  and  then  another,  it  is  a  pleasure  and 
a  relief  to  know  that  there  is  a  large  body  of  the 
younger  men  who  subscribe  to  Sargent's  formu- 
las and  methods.  So  far  as  I  know  he  has  never 
done  any  teaching  nor  had  any  pupils,  and  yet 
the  influence  of  his  works  has  been  great  not 
only  in  England  but  in  France  and  America. 
For  many  years  his  method  of  handling  has  been 
held  up  for  admiration  in  the  schools  and  every 
new  work  of  his  shown  in  an  exhibition  has  had 
its  chorus  of  students  to  pay  it  homage.  They 
could  not  follow  a  better  master. 

Sargent,  Alexander,  Chase,  with  many  other 
painters  who  came  to  the  front  with  the  founding 
of  the  Society  of  American  Artists,  have  helped 
form  the  new  American  tradition  of  the  craft. 
As  I  have  indicated  many  times  in  the  course 
of  these  pages,  that  tradition  is  not  based  in 
any  mere  theory  or  fancy  of  art  but  primarily 
in  the  calm,  cold  practice  of  good  workmanship. 
In  other  words,  the  craftsman  first;  the  great 
artist  afterward — if  such  thing  may  be.  There 
could  be  no  wiser  teaching,  no  more  enduring 


JOHN   S.   SARGENT  269 

tradition.  With  it  the  painter  can  rise  to  what 
eerie  heights  he  will;  without  it  he  forever 
moves  on  leaden  wings. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  what  the  present  genera- 
tion will  do  in  art.  So  many  strange  idols  are 
set  up  in  art  places  from  day  to  day  that  one 
wonders  if  faith  and  purpose  shall  last.  But 
whatever  path  the  new  group  may  follow  or 
movement  it  may  pursue,  it  cannot  complain 
that  its  hands  and  eyes  have  not  been  trained; 
it  cannot  say  that  it  inherited  no  artistic  patri- 
mony, was  given  no  schooling,  was  taught  no 
craftsmanship.  The  men  of  1878  were  perhaps 
handicapped  by  starting  late  and  having  to 
get  their  technical  education  in  foreign  lands, 
but  the  men  of  to-day  have  no  such  excuse. 
They  can  be  technically  well  educated  on  their 
own  native  heath;  they  are  practically  not  handi- 
capped at  all. 

Will  their  success  be  the  greater  for  that.^* 
Who  can  tell?  There  is  always  a  tearing-down 
process  going  on  in  art  almost  exactly  commen- 
surate with  the  building-up  process,  and  our 
country  and  its  art  may  be  on  the  threshold  of 
such  an  epoch.  Again,  who  knows  .'^  Many  a 
generation  has  prepared  and  builded  for  its 
succeeding  generation — ^prepared  and  builded 
apparently  in  vain.  But  whether  the  period  is  one 
of  progress  or  recession  it  will  not  be  the  worse 
for   the   presence   of   competent  builders.    The 


270  AMERICAN  PAINTING 

tradition  of  art  is  now  deep-rooted.  It  will  con- 
tinue to  grow  and  assert  itself  even  though  there 
be  no  historic  sequence  in  its  results.  And  so  the 
thought  is  perhaps  worth  reiterating  that  the 
men  of  1878  really  have  builded  and  prepared, 
with  a  will  and  in  a  way  that  will  not  soon  be 
forgotten. 


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